Set during a time marked by social upheaval and dissent, foreshadowing our current civil protests for justice, PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story is a tale of class, the power of communication, and the redemptive fire of love. Experience the 1960s San Francisco Bay Area first-hand through the eyes of a mute girl born into wealth and a loudmouthed Native American boy whose paths cross at pivotal historic moments in the 60's as the country was splitting apart -- a roadside accident, a Santana benefit concert for farmworkers with Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez breaking his hunger strike with Robert Kennedy in Delano, an autoworkers' nationwide strike, and the Native American takeover of Alcatraz. During these brief encounters, Maja and Billy touch, they kiss, and they break each other's hearts without ever knowing the other's name as the currents of their lives pull them apart, again and again.
The story of Maja Hawthorne and Billy Wayman Wolfe, haunted by each other and the lessons they must learn to be united, is a 20th century bicultural coming of age romance novel about the redemptive fire of love during an unprecedented time marked by the assassinations of three political lions, an unpopular war, and growing civil unrest with strikes, protests, and marches demanding an end to the Vietnam War, and equality and justice for Native Americans, Blacks, women, farmworkers, and autoworkers.
PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story demonstrates what happens when we push past conventional expectations toward cataclysmic change.
While PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story is a work of fiction, several well-known historical figures appear:
*Carlos Santana
*Dolores Huerta
*Jimi Hendrix
*Robert Francis Kennedy
*Cesar Chavez
Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional from the author's imagination and not to be construed as real, nor intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work, although the author has tried to keep as historically accurate as possible. In all other aspects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Set in the San Francisco Bay Area during the turbulent 1960s, PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story follows the tangled destinies of two people who have nothing in common but their mutual fascination in their seemingly random meetings. As adults, before they can set out on their own, first they each must find and confront the mysterious other.
Told from alternating points-of-view, Maja Hawthorne and Billy Wayman Wolfe come from opposite worlds but when their eyes meet they know one another in a profound and certain way. Each of them, separately and in parallel, fight against social expectations, their private longings, and ultimately who they are for who they will become.
Circumstances pull them together and challenge them to demonstrate their readiness for the other, their one true wild and precious someone. Their flaws spin them apart.
This historical novel illuminates the ways, against all odds, two people are destined for each other, and demonstrates that our chances for love and happiness are never truly over or used up. Success hangs on readiness and timing.
Author Biography:
Born in San Francisco, a fifth-generation Californian, Martha Alderson grew up in the Bay Area in the 50's and 60's, non-verbal and dyslexic. She modeled for a time and then became a speech pathologist. Now as the author of the best-selling The Plot Whisperer and Boundless Creativity: A Spiritual Guide for Overcoming Self-Doubt, Emotional Traps, and Other Creative Blocks, she takes readers and writers beyond the words into the very heart of the Universal Story, and deep into the creative process. She invites you to visit MarthaAlderson.com and is happy to meet virtually with book groups and writing groups. Just as World War II ended, Bobby Ray Alderson at three years old traveled by troop train from Oklahoma to California with his Potawatomi Grandmother Ethel Wolfe. They settled in Delano where Bobby became a fruit tramp, picking peaches, apricots, and cherries with his grandfather, uncles, and cousins. At nineteen years old, he started working on the assembly line as a member of the United Auto Workers. Two years later, he won his first union election and went on to hold office for ten years. He is a member of the Potawatomi Citizen Band in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
