When Carolyn Ann Davis and Allan Allison leave East Tennessee after high school in the 1930s for the “Old World,” the unique casual friends never really expect to meet again. The African American girl is off to college and medical school in France, and the boy is a young amateur pilot seeking jobs that could advance him in the growing new field of flight. The close bond of their fathers from the Great War (1914-18) had brought two families unusually close together, somewhat in secret, across segregation’s invisible barrier, and there had been times on weekend picnics, hikes, and camping trips, when each had felt a closeness to the other growing . . even the natural carnal pull of the typical teenager. But that was years ago.
Then, as Doctor Ann Davis hires a pilot named Allison more than half a decade later to supply her medial safari in Central Africa, she doesn’t recognized the bigger, stronger, tanned man she is dealing with.
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Finally, on the plains of Africa below the Congo both wonder if any place is safe on the eve of a wider world war in 1941? For Ann may be at risk from Nazi agents deep in the continent below the fighting on the “Horn of Africa” and the deserts of Libya and Egypt, while Allan has witnessed the infamous “Rape of Nanking” on a secret China flight for the British and Americans in 1937 and now bears the emotional scars.
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This is a love story, but so much more. And it does not play out as a romp between the bed sheets. So don’t look for that. It is a physical and emotional story of the several types of love . . for each other, humanity, country, God . . and it is lived, played out, and fought on the African savanna, in blue or stormy skies over azure seas (and under them), and in steamy South Pacific jungles and mountain rainforest of the Philippines. It was an era without cellphones, television, personal computers, portable personal music, and more . . a time when the good and bad people of Japan seemed to have lost their minds and were logically, deridingly called “Japs” with emotions of deep anger by their harshly abused victims and the brave defenders and rescuers of those victim populations, and a time when Christian lovers sometimes really did wait for marriage vows.
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Most of all perhaps, it was a time for necessary, hard decisions, ultimate sacrifice . . and of death all around . . when women took a greater role in society and young people really willingly, metaphorically signed that check to their country that said:
“... payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including my life.”
This is not an easy read . . not pop fiction, but it flows over 400 pages, keeping you
intensely involved . . nuanced, serious literature. Broaden your horizons.
Companion Novel |
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