Alan Robert Proctor’s historical novel, Adirondack Summer, 1969, is now available from the author, Westphalia Press, Amazon or Kindle.
For nearly two decades, Deidre Cravitz has managed a fine arts summer camp for creative children in the heart of upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains. As the 1969 summer camp season approaches, however, Deidre dies in a car accident. Grief stricken, her husband, Myron, can’t bring himself to cancel his wife’s summer passion despite his ignorance of camp supervision and the impending arrival of 80 children. Set during the height of the Vietnam War, the moon landing and racial tensions, Adirondack Summer, 1969 is a tale of obsession and its consequences: love found, love lost, lust, revenge, homicide and renewal.
Advance Praise includes:
“I’m a big believer in good first lines to novels, and Alan Proctor grabs you from the first sentence.” Frank Higgins, playwright, author of Black Pearl Sings.
“…It’s a poignant, playful, intensely imagined book, written with grace and good humor and the kind of sentences all writers ache to produce. Highly recommended…” Brian Shawver, author of Aftermath and The Language of Fiction.
“This jewel of a novel…reminds readers of the vulnerability and gifts of summer… I fell right into the the characters, the setting and the drama…” Denise Low, 2007-2009 Poet Laureate of Kansas, author of Melange Block and Jackalope.
“Alan Proctor’s Adirondack Summer, 1969, is a meditation on grief and loss, told with the verve of a John Irving novel. Proctor’s vivid sense of place makes the novel’s setting – an arts camp in the Adirondacks – a character in its own right. His cast, led by Deidre and Myron Cravitz, weave a gorgeous, often comic, tapestry of their delusions, loves and dreams. Any reader booking a cabin at Camp Cravitz should prepare to be moved and entertained.” Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant.
“I’ve always wanted to visit the Adirondacks in summer, to listen to the loons on a glacial lake, and after my death, to eavesdrop on my spouse. This is Adirondack Summer, 1969, a smartly written page-turner of a novel…” Al Ortolani, Manuscript Editor, Woodley Press
“A modern-day fairy tale… In Alan Robert Proctor’s sensitive hands, we can smell the pines, the lake water, the camp food and the pheromones while an ethereal omniscience observes a theatrical cast of characters who’ve brought their own demons to the iconic American idyll of summer camp…” C.J. Janovy, author of No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas
“Welcome to Camp Cravitz… A strong sense of story keeps readers turning pages as compelling characters – campers, staff, and the spirit of the director’s dead wife – deal with life-changing events during the camp’s last season.” Mary-Lane Kamberg, co-leader of the Kansas City Writers Group
“In remarkable story form, Alan Proctor captures (unobtrusively) the uncertainties of 1969, pivotal year of war and collective grief over assassinations and political upheavals. …In a style reminiscent of John Updike, the author employs a unique setting, unique narration, and a protagonist (Myron) whose goals appear to exceed his means of reaching them…” Norm Ledgin, author of Diagnosing Jefferson and Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
“An America that we offspring of the Sixties lost to adulthood and the 21st century returns to vivid life in Adirondack Summer, 1969… Alan Proctor has crafted a book that beautifully recalls who we were then.”Michael Pritchett, author of The Melancholy Fate of Captain Lewis, Unbridled Books
“…Set in the late 1960s – a backdrop of the Vietnam War, and the moon walk – the novel offers a ghostly narrator and a host of interesting characters, both sympathetic and foul… Proctor has a gift for drawing a scene… A good, entertaining, fast-paced read.” Catherine Browder, author of “Now We Can All Go Home,” 3 novellas in homage to Checkhov
Compiled and edited with reflections by Alan Robert Proctor: Alanrobertproctor.wordpress.com
Alan Robert Proctor 