A Place We Knew Well: A Novel. Carol McCarthy. Random House Publishing Group.
September 2015. 272 pp. ISBN#: 9780804176545.
Wes
Avery is the owner of a Texaco gas station, happily married to Sarah and father
to Charlotte. Life has been moving along
nicely, when Wes and his neighbors notice fighter jets flying overhead in
massive groups along one of Florida’s busiest highways. The military air traffic is much busier than
normally occurs and then President John F. Kennedy announces that Cuba has
nuclear missiles provided by Russia. He
is demanding their removal. Avery’s
assistant is a Cuban exile who is very upset by the ramped-up crisis situation
as his mother is in the precise area where these missiles are located.
Charlotte
is a typical teenager obsessed with friends and an upcoming dance for which she
has no date. When she accepts an offer
from Avery’s assistant, her mother Sarah is completely undone. She becomes obsessed with their home-made air
raid shelter and is clearly mentally unraveling.
Here
is the simple yet complex plot evolving in miniscule stages. Russian ships approach Cuba with more nuclear
arms. Attempts are being made to
negotiate a treaty with Turkey involved, promising equal removal of military
arms that could destroy the world in seconds.
The
Avery family has its own secret that will threaten to be as devastating. Avery’s former military experience knows more
than the average Floridian that the increasing military build-up in Florida
presages war-status action.
By
the time the chaos comes to the very brink of attack, the Avery family has
completely come undone.
A Place We Knew Well is a realistic account of the Cuban
crisis that swept across America and Europe that is perfectly plotted,
revealing the doubt, fear, anxiety, and psychic inability to cope that occurred
in a very short time. It was the first
time that the existence of nuclear arms went beyond a contest of “Who’s got
more toys?” to “This is for real, folks.”
Nicely
crafted fiction about all-too-real turmoil in American history, Carol McCarthy!
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