Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is a novel about Young High School, drive-in restaurants, being young and foolish, South Knoxville, love and patriotism, The University of Tennessee, and the search for meaning when we were all a herd of confused whippersnappers. Then the story transports you via bus to Parris Island in sunny South Carolina where you'll go through Marine Corps boot training with John, Red, and Bubba.

Next you'll receive a free flight, care of Uncle Sam, to exotic and tropical Vietnam where you'll meet up with Master Sergeant Patrick Lucian Abernathy, and 'Charlie' ( your Viet Cong hosts ). Gunny will try his best to keep you alive. Charlie will try and kill you.

Excert: Following the decline and fall of the almighty Fifties, and keeping their knees together, women were given the "pill." Inhibitions flew out the proverbial window and sex, in flagrant sex, became a red hot commodity. Gays came into vogue. So did religious cults, communes, long hair, and "dropping out." American jurisprudence took a turn to the Left. Consequently, crime drop-kicked society square in the balls. It was a convoluted harvest of American politicians, many of whom, like today, couldn't locate their backside in the dark with both hands. But there was still time for the music, the ganja, and the horizontal cha cha cha.

Jim Morrison was the guru of the hippie generation. Janis Joplin lived and sang Full Tilt Boogie and Piece Of My Heart. And Jimi Hendrix played his Star Spangled Banner before the crowd at Woodstock. Steppenwolf told of the American drug culture in Desperation and The Pusher, Iron Butterfly was In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, and our wiley friend Mick Jagger up and stole the King's thorny crown. People loved the Bee Gees and went gonzo over Led Zeppelin.
 
Lu Lu is best remembered by her fond farewell to high school, and a talented black teacher with her enchanting melody To Sir With Love, in a moving picture with the same title starring Sydney Poitier. Meanwhile Pepperlanders crossed the Atlantic and blitzkrieged the entire clubfooted menagerie. People wore funny clothes during the brief reign of the Great Society. "Getting stoned" evolved as the new fashion for facing all the bullshit. Bob Dylan became the voice of American protest. Slavery was abolished. The balance of world power was shifting.

Come join John and Bubba on their journey back through time to that forgotten world of the 1960s, their lives and loves and USMC friendships, and the humid jungles of Vietnam where mystery and death lurked back among the trees.