Historical war novel opens Serendipity year
The Serendipity project of BRTC kicks off at a luncheon meeting on Friday, October 2, with the historical novel, In My Father’s House. The work of fiction follows the lives of four young soldiers returning home in 1918 after their time in the foxholes of France in the “war to end all wars.”
Project facilitator Dr. Jan Ziegler said she is especially excited to open the year with this work of historical fiction because it is “not only a great read, but it is surprisingly modern and relevant though it is set 100 years ago.”
The faith-based fiction book follows the lives of four young soldiers: Max Meyers, an orphan from the poor Orchard Street neighborhood of New York; Ellis Warne, an Irish doctor’s son from Ohio; Birch Tucker, an Arkansas farm boy; and Jefferson Canfield, the son of a black sharecropper, also of Arkansas, so this fiction book will hold special interest for local readers, Ziegler said.
The returning soldiers find their homecoming is not exactly as they had expected. Their dreams are threatened by undercurrents of racial, religious, and cultural intolerance which threaten the very foundations of the nation.
“I really loved reading this book,” Ziegler said, “and I look forward to discussing it with the Serendipity group. It is a story with universal concerns and struggles that are common to us all,” she explained, “And though it is set in a time frame separated by ours by a century, the story helps us consider how connected we remain to those who lived before us by many of life’s most enduring struggles.”
Serendipity is sponsored by BRTC’s Office of Corporate and Community Education. The meetings, held in the Community Room of the Richard Gaines Technology Center, include lunch beginning at 11:30 a.m., followed by exploration of the book and its themes. Sessions conclude at 1, according to Patti Blaxton, BRTC’s Director of Corporate and Community Education. Membership is open to individuals of all ages. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Blaxton at the Office of Corporate and Community Education at Black River Technical College, at 870-248-4180.