WINNER OF THE CANADA COUNCIL OF THE ARTS AWARD FOR RESEARCH AND
NOMINATED BY AMAZON BOOKS FOR THE AMAZON/PENGUIN BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL
AWARD. 'There is a Season' is an original work of historical
fiction, that jumps about in space and time, taking the reader from
tank battles on the bloody streets of revolution-torn 1956
Budapest, to drunken shenanigans on the back roads of 1972 Yukon
Territory. It tells the story of a Hungarian family broken by the
Russian occupation of Hungary, and an American family broken by the
war in Vietnam. 'There is a Season' is sometimes funny, sometimes
graphically violent and always entertaining. It can make you laugh,
then wonder why you're laughing. Something happens on every page.
Historically famous not only for the Klondike Gold Rush, the Yukon
Territory has always been a place for people from around the world
to 'hide-out'. In the words of one character, "this territory is
safe ground for misfits, cast-offs, fuck-ups, black sheep, and
every other kind of poor soul who can't or won't fit in anywhere
else. It's home for the run-aways and refugees of the world." The
story: The only son of Hungarian refugees from the failed revolt of
1956 breaks his parents hearts by dropping out of university and
heading to the Yukon, seeking his fortune in the gold mines; a
decorated Vietnam Vet breaks family tradition and honor, by
shooting his naive kid brother in the foot, saving him from Vietnam
but sentencing him to public shame. The Vietnam Vet then turns his
back on his home and family, deserts the Marine Corps and goes as
far as the road will let him, then hides out in the Yukon, making
his living as a wood cutter. The unlikely pair hit the road and
'There is a Season' tells the gritty story of where they came from
and why, and how, together, they mend their broken families. Takes
the reader into the AVO, the hated Hungarian Secret Police, and
shows how any country's civil war can divide a family. From the
Author: I wrote this novel because I lived it. In 1970, like a
couple of my characters, I abandoned my family's tradition of
military service and became a miner in the Yukon. In the mining
camps I taught Basic English to refugees from Eastern Europe, many
of them veterans of the Second War and the revolts in Warsaw,
Berlin, Budapest and Prague. Some, then in their late forties and
early fifties, had been child slave miners and survived the death
camps of Hitler and Stalin. Others were low-grade war criminals,
and among them, unrepentant Nazis. Feuds were common and there were
suspicious deaths. The other common thing among them was their
hatred of communists. Helping me teach the European refugees were
members of the latest generation of refugees to Canada: military
draft dodgers and deserters from the U.S.A. As they refused to
participate in the war in Vietnam, this made them, in the eyes of
some of the European refugees, communist sympathizers, and targets
for their hostility. As my own ancestry is American (my father left
California to serve in the Canadian First Division during WW 2),
many of the Europeans' looked well upon him, but poorly upon
myself. I was not in Vietnam where "I belonged." I explained to
them that I was Canadian and not subject to the draft. To them,
this was meaningless. My father was American and served in the
Canadian Army, therefore I, as a Canadian, should serve in the
American Army. We never settled that.
General
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