INDIGO DREAMS
Indigo Dreams is a coming of age/young love story set in St. Augustine, Florida, the nation’s oldest city. The story unfolds during the summer of 1964 and might best be described as a cross between Huckleberry Finn and American Graffiti.
Over seven very eventful weeks, Danny Andreu tries to win the heart of an amazing young girl, get a summer job, earn his driver’s license, and negotiate living with an abusive stepfather. As the summer progresses, St. Augustine is increasingly torn as civil rights demonstrators hold marches, sit-ins, and wade-ins at local beaches and hotel swimming pools.
These activities are met with stiff resistance, and even violence, from racist factions within and without the community, including some of Danny’s friends and relatives. Danny struggles to bridge the gulf between black and white worlds as he is pulled one way by his family and friends, another by Fish Red, a black fisherman, for whom Danny feels great affection and respect.
Indigo Dreams is a story about the struggle between human decency and the evils of racism in a city that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once termed the “most racist city in America.” Will Danny find the courage and resolve to become not just a man, but his own man, or will outside influences and family ties cause him to buckle to social convention? A fascinating sense of time and place is paramount in the strong narrative that captures the essence of living in the nation’s oldest city in the mid-sixties.
(This book is currently in manuscript form)