WELCOME TO PURPLE CROW PUBLICATIONS
Books that make your heart beat faster
​
Paddy Meecham missed the sixties. The changes that swept the country, the civil rights struggle, women’s liberation, radical changes in sexual mores, and protests happened far outside the world of rural Maine. Or, as folks in that part of the country say, “out in the puckerbrush.” The term describes the interwoven tangle of underbrush that grows up in abandoned farm fields and fire scar. Like “boondocks” it’s come to mean anywhere far from sophisticated life.
Music and television penetrated the puckerbrush, hinting at the larger world. To visit that world, Paddy takes the accepted path, enlisting in the service. But first, he has to get through high school.
On the way to that goal, he discovers he’s not a hunter, is nearly lost at sea, and is even visited by a ghost. We leave him after he returns to the world after tours in Viet Nam.
Georgiana Harrington finds herself widowed before reaches twenty. Her husband, Billy, was killed early on by Yankee guns in Missouri, leaving her with a small ranch burdened with debt. Scratching and clawing, she survived the war. Now, she faces the possibility of losing it all.
Despite her good looks and reputation as a hard worker, Georgie is hesitant to remarry. People on the frontier know that a woman alone can’t provide for herself, but she refuses to be dependent on a man again. Most of the eligible men in town have made advances, but she has turned them down flat. Her behavior has left the townspeople mystified, as they don’t believe she would forsake marriage forever.
Even the richest man in town, whose bank holds the delinquent mortgage on her ranch, has proposed to her repeatedly, only to be turned down. Georgie is determined to rely on the town businesses that got her through the war to continue to provide for her.
However, her resolve is tested when a Yankee drifter on a big cavalry horse enters her life. Despite her hatred for the Yankees, there’s something about this man that awakened feelings that she has long suppressed. She finds herself reconsidering what she needs and wants.
The drifter, closed off emotionally, believes all women are faithless. He longs for a home, but the hellish things he’s seen and done sow doubts that he will ever find such a place.
​
Packing up after two barely mediocre years in college, John Bennett doubted the value of returning in the fall. His father, blue-collar and poorly-educated, had preached many a late-night sermon extolling the financial value of a college education. About as often, he spoke of the sacred duty of all men to answer their country’s call – preferably in the United States Marine Corps.
By 1967, more than 450,000 American troops were fighting in Viet Nam. John felt that going to fight was his duty, even though anti-war (or, at least, anti-draft) sentiment was growing in the country.
It was also a time of when the youth of America abandoned many of the moral and cultural norms of their parents. Spokesmen talked of gentleness, understanding, and togetherness. Pundits agreed that this generation was somehow different from the the older generation.
In hopes of finding enlightenment before enlisting, John set off on a spirit journey across country to the heart of the Summer of Love, San Francisco.
​