The Eisenhower era is coming to an end and Americans are edgy. Soviet satellites orbit though space, passing over every part of the U.S.; images of nucleaer devastation work their way into people's dreams and they worry about the threat of communist spies and sympathizers seeking to overthrow the government from within. Even in the town of Chippewa , nestled safely in the country's interior, citizens feel the threat, they have their reservations about the intellectuals at the state university where Ted Riley is a graduate student.

Abandoned by his father as a child, Ted is determined to coolly negotiate the perils of a time that, for all its seeming tranquility, is on the verge of dramatic changes. By chance-or possibly not-Andrew Kesler, a refugee from Poland Who works at the university library, enters his life. Gay, outrageous and haunted, Kesler widens Ted's world, as does Dori Green, a smart and sexy Californian with scant patience for the compromises of a system that suppresses freedom in the name of the fight against communism. Faced with inescapable choices, Ted comes to understand where his loyalties lie, and he recognizes that an America frightened into a vision of stability may still have the boldness to risk a leap into the future.

 

K.C.FREDERICK is the author of Country of Memory (1998), The Fourteenth Day (2000) and Accomplices (2003) as well as many short stories, a number of which have been anthologized. Born and raised in Detroit , he now lives in the Boston area.