Richard Engberg

Beyond the Border: Novel III of Tales of the Border Richard Engberg

The title for this third and most formidable series of adventures takes place mostly in a foreign country, in a psychological and supernatural morass, so the double-entendre of border is valid. The poet as a draft dodger, having finally arrived in Canada, is pulled before, by the fickle winds of fate. As a result of his choice of action, he has been torn from the loves in his American life, and blown away into psychedelic realms of a subjective foreign universe. He faces both physical danger, and thresholds of insanity, as he navigates to salvage his identity and memory, amidst a certain amount of foreign enmity and humiliation. His new life and wife fail to believe that he is an immigrant at the bottom of society, and as an American, he has some explaining to do so rather, any attempts at integration into this new country require passing the most harrowing or undesirable assignments. When Sam attempts to briefly cross the border to visit the States, it is with certain risk of capture, or unforeseen consequences. There are in fact new worlds to discover beyond the border and further wildest shores but of his ever returning permanently to the U. S. there is no guarantee, nor is it in the cards, pending the outcome of an entrenched, seemingly inexorable American war.