From Gettysburg with Love

This work of fiction around recorded history personifies the strong and ongoing alliance between America and Australia which was formed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Theo is 10 years old as American troops arrive in the small fishing village of Mourning Plain on the south coast of Australia. When Theo's father joins the Australian Imperial Force and goes overseas in 1940, William Abraham Jones, Theo's 90-year-old American born grandfather, comes to live with Theo and his mother in Mourning Plain. William was only fourteen when he fought with the victorious Union Army at the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Theo's father is captured in Crete in 1941 and spends the next four years as a prisoner of war. William, a great admirer of President Lincoln, has a strong and positive influence on his youngest grandson. His stories about the Civil War and the Gettysburg battle, of slavery and the American Indian Wars, etched themselves deeply into Theo's memory, developing in him an early awareness of human struggle and suffering. Theo is appalled by the crimes against humanity described at the Nuremberg trials. His grandfather, as he lies dying a few weeks after Henry returns home, tells Theo that after he visits the Gettysburg battlefield and stands near where President Lincoln gave his famous address, the stories he has told him over the years will help him understand the causes of human cruelty and destruction. This is an entertaining and thought-provoking read. The story follows Theo through his childhood, sexual awakening, his first and second loves and his visit to Gettysburg, which finally puts into perspective for him, the teachings from his grandfather's stories.