Outskirts Press, INC.

We Are The Choices We Face

To come of age in the 1960’s is to have experienced the upheaval resulting from the War in Vietnam and the Movement opposing it. Set against the turmoil, Peace Now! follows the journey taken by Tom Hill, a descendant of the men who fought the mining wars of the 1920’s. It also describes the journey of the other students at the Mansion and the Magic Theater, who seek to shape their futures while society is sloughing off truths held inviolate. The questions for Tom and his friends, especially Sandra, are not simple. Are they children or adults, are they patriots or traitors, are they stepping into the future or off the edge of the past? Peace Now! is the riveting account of a reckoning with the future. An easy read for a not so easy time. Eva Santiago, author of Salsa

Opening to Chapter Five: At the end of the summer Miss Terry came to the Mansion for her annual visit. The daughter of the man who had built the house she had lived her life in California. Grown old, widowed, her only child lost to polio, she had asked her nephew to let her return to the big house of her youth. He agreed. He had never been able to interest anyone in the rock pile he had inherited. But when Miss Terry arrived in Wilcox by train, he blanched. Her girlhood approached and very soon. His wife suggested he settle his aunt into a nursing home not far from the old place, but far enough to keep her from bothering his new tenants, a group of students who wore button down shirts, blouses, and black rimmed glasses. Much to the nephew’s surprise, the older ones who paid the rent asked him to let her come to a garden party there. The nephew thought about agreeing. A few lines on the society page might sell more fencing, Clay’s Hardware, corner of … But his wife, another descendant of the original settlers, balked. “You mean a woodsy? They want her to come to a woodsy?”