"The Trip Into Milky Way" by Gary Paul Corcoran is historical
fiction that is smart, political, inspiring and epic...
"The Trip Into Milky Way" by Gary Paul Corcoran (ISBN-10:
1583851666) is historical fiction that
is smart, political, inspiring and epic.
The sixties -- John F Kennedy moves into the White House. He
gives his famous speech - "Ask not what your country can do
for you, but what you can do for your country." President
Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22. The
Beatles, a British rock and roll band invaded America and
changed music. This was the first year cigarette boxes had a
warning printed on them, "Smoking can be hazardous to your
health." The first Civil Rights bill was passed to stop
racial discrimination. The first heart transplant was performed
and nearly half a million people headed over to a 600 acre farm
in New York for the Woodstock Festival.
The sixties were the age of youth, as 70 million children from
the post-war baby boom became teenagers and young adults. The
movement away from the conservative fifties continued and
eventually resulted in revolutionary ways of thinking and real
change in the cultural fabric of American life. No longer
content to be images of the generation ahead of them, young
people demanded and dreamed of change. The changes affected
education, values, lifestyles, laws, and entertainment. Many of
the revolutionary ideas which began in the sixties are
continuing to evolve today. It was a a decade marred by student
protests and assassinations, the war in Vietnam and civil
strife, but a decade also distinguished by peace and love, a
celebration of newfound freedoms and by great achievements like
American astronauts landing on the moon.
In "The Trip Into Milky Way," Clay Matthews, has all of
his hopes and dreams collide with a draft notice. Clay chooses
not to be a soldier involuntarily and this is his story. A story
of a man whose life is seen and formed by turning his back on a
War but not on life. "The Trip Into Milky Way," is what
happens to a man who refuses NOT to die for his country.
In a recent interview the author says, "I am of the sixties
generation, and in writing this novel and in attempting in few
words to define what that meant, who were we, what would mark
precisely where we stood along the march of time, this formula
occurred to me...In writing Milky Way, I had pause to wonder,
how did I become so adamantly opposed to that war at an early
age? War is easy. Peace is hard. Of the thousand things I
learned or relearned in writing this novel, that stands out from
all the rest. One need only go back to the enormous frustration
the world felt as Saddam played his shell game with hidden
weapons five years ago. Now imagine what the world would be like
if we had simply boxed him in with determined diplomacy instead.
One can only hope all of us have learned from this costly
lesson."
"The Trip Into Milky Way" is as complex as it is simple.
This is an epic journey that is well paced, beautifully iconic
in description with believable characters. The real question and
most interesting question is where did the author get such a
great and 'catchy' tile and how it relates to the book? The
author explains, "Frankly, the title came to me in the middle
of the night. I had been reading Joseph Campbell at the time and
struggling with someway to evoke the sixties, while also
conveying the theme of personal awakening that permeates Clay's
entire quest. And suddenly, there it was, flashing in my head at
three in the morning. The sixties were a trip. An entire
generation went off in search of enlightenment. At some point,
if fortunate enough, the eyes of your eyes were opened. You
realized. I have been deposited on this far-flung spiral arm of
a galaxy called the Milky Way. To arrive where I started and
know the place for the first time, as T.S. Eliot said. And there
was Clay at the end, musing along much the same lines. The world
was different for him now, but only because he had changed
within."
"The Trip Into Milky Way" will challenge your perceptions
and feelings. This is a great book that is a lesson in history
as much as it is a lesson in life. "The Trip Into Milky Way"
by Gary Paul Corcoran is a much anticipated journey that is
well worth the
'trip!'
AuthorsPressReleases.com Book Review
"The Trip Into Milky Way" by Gary Paul Corcoran
Publisher: Cold Tree Press
ISBN-10: 1583851666
About the Author: Born in Hartford Connecticut, Gary
Corcoran moved with his family as a
young boy and grew up in the world of orange groves and
suburban tract homes south of Los Angeles in the 1960s.
Bitten by the wanderlust bug at an early age, he abandoned
college and traveled extensively through Europe and the
Mediterranean, only to learn upon his return that he had
been drafted into the Vietnam War. A child of the free
speech, coffee house idealism of the early sixties and a
survivor of the psychedelic journey that concluded the
decade, he was a draft dodger and lived with that
uncertainty until President Carter issued his blanket
amnesty in 1977.
Author of numerous poems over the course of his life, he
began to write fiction in 1992 and was recently named the
winner of the Mayhaven Publishing Company’s Adult Novel
Contest for 2004 and was one of five finalists in Oak Tree
Book’s 2004 Timeless Love Novel Contest for his novel The
Last Love of Eleanor Sands.
Mr. Corcoran resides in Laguna Beach, California. Visit Gary
online at
http://www.tripintomilkyway.com
