Showing results by author "Jack B. Rochester" in All Categories

Madrone, the second volume in the Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers trilogy, follows Wild Blue Yonder: A Novel of the 1960s. It’s 1969 and Nate is out of the Air Force and back in California, in the arms of Jane Chandler, the girl he left behind. Pretty, high-spirited, and totally in love with Nate, Jane takes him back to college with her, the University of California at Santa Cruz, one of the hippest campuses in the country. At first, Nate follows what seems like a set path: college, becoming a good citizen. But it doesn’t take long before he sees the system for what it is. And he doesn’t ...

Wild Blue Yonder is the coming-of-age story of Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers, a smart but sheltered boy from suburban Chicago whose beloved father suddenly dies, resulting in his flunking out of college. Nate receives a draft notice from the Army but after some “encouragement” from his mother, decides to enlist in the Air Force instead. It is 1965. Nate is 20 years old. Airman Flowers goes not to Vietnam but Germany, straight into a military Catch-22. His assignment: writing stories as a reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper which will never see print. Nate's adventure deepens as he ...