There Is A Generation: Kids of "The Greatest Generation" (Kids of the Greatest Generation Book 1)

This is not a novel, but a parable, a long parable. Despite the fact both are stories, there is a considerable difference between the two. A novel deals in reality. This is true even if the narrative describes the most bizarre and fantastic of situations. In science fiction, for instance. the story still adheres to believable exchanges between characters and the interactions follow 'normal' aspects of human relations even if among alien creatures.
The parable, on the other hand, relegates reality to a secondary status for the sake of delivering a message. For example, a parable raconteur might tell of a slave who owed ten millions dollars to a king. It's clearly ridiculous that a king would loan a slave who he owned anything, even a paltry sum, much less ten million. But that is not the point. The point is the moral is paramount that comes from the story. That then is the difference. And now for the parable's synopsis.

In 1950’s west Texas, while exploring a mesquite-dotted desert, best friends Tim and Hect come upon an abandoned auto junkyard. Rabbit hunting loses its entertaining appeal for a game of “War” with their .22 caliber semiautomatic rifles, but the boys’ world suddenly goes awry as their game turns into a ghastly murder, or so they believe.

Hect has the idea to set fire to an old shack within the junkyard for a final thrill of the day. Tim readily agrees, although he thinks his friend's objective is a wasp nest under a mesquite bush. They fill an empty bottle with gas from a nearby wrecked truck and hurl the Molotov cocktail at the sun-dried shed which erupts in a fireball. Shocked by his friend’s target, Tim gapes in horror as a blazing figure appears within the shack's fiery window. He and the human torch gaze at each other a terrifying moment as the memory tattoos a ghastly image on the boy's brain. Interrupted by the sound of sirens coming from the direction of town, and believing their prank may land them a seat on “Sparky,” Gatesvilles electric chair, the boys think their only choice is to become fugitives from the law.

Armed with dogged determination and a forehead-slapping sense of naivete, the boys flee into the harsh west Texas desert. Because of their pampered lifestyles until now, the two could not be less prepared to face hunger, thirst, life on the road, homelessness, and a world of poverty and slums, plus the mean streets of Juarez, Mexico.

In their travels through unforgiving wilderness and city ghettos, Tim and Hect fall into adventures and troubles beyond their wildest imagination. They encounter such personalities as scam artists, madmen, escaped convicts, and even mercenaries as the two friends stumble through west Texas, New Mexico, and deep into Old Mexico. In a tongue-in-cheek romp that will take readers through ranges of emotion, they meet never-before-seen characters such as Fast-One, a slum lord who ought to be in prison for the heartless practical jokes she pulls on her tenants, to a trucker named T.J. and his beautiful-but-deceitful daughter, Becca, who run a scam called the "Poison Log Routine," to a cowboy, Eli, and his wife, Snowball, who run a diner and allow Tim as dishwasher to eat all the scraps he can hold for his wage, and other oddball-but-lovable characters.

A biting satire on societal excess and privilege that makes fun of the 1950's, the humorous action/adventure, THERE IS A GENERATION, reflects the wildness of boyhood, the idiocy of entitlement, and the fleeting nature of childhood.