For The Long Haul

‘For The Long Haul’ is a cautionary tale of undeserved guilt, self-alienation, the need to take care of those around you, and the awesome power of choice. The novel begins in northern Kentucky and moves in time and place from the 1950’s to mid January of 1985; from Kentucky to Vietnam to Washington D.C. to a final revelation at a dying, utopian religious commune named Shakertown.

Brendan and Carol Ann are two damaged people who love each other, but their marriage has become withdrawn and cold. When they learn that Billy Ray — a homeless Vietnam War veteran whom they both knew in the past in quite different ways — has frozen to death in a Washington D.C. city park in the shadow of the White House, they are each propelled into personal recollections which may hold the keys to their future.

Complicating matters is Nathan Ray — Billy’s brother and Carol Ann’s former husband — who reenters the picture upon his brother’s death, intent on revenge against Brendan over a litany of imagined wrongs inflicted upon him in the past. He is not above using what he believes to be Carol Ann’s lingering attraction for him to gain that vengeance. Will the love Brendan and Carol Ann hold for each other be enough to keep them together? Or will forces from the past reach in and tear them apart?