J. A. Gasperetti

Landon's Odyssey J. A. Gasperetti

LANDON'S ODYSSEY: SUMMARY/PROMOTION Gil Landon, a returning Vietnam veteran, has a pervasive feeling of angst. His love is gone, his graduate studies interrupted, his prospects for a job are bleak, and his treatment for a war wound mediocre. This is quite a plateful for a veteran to handle while trying to acclimate to civilian life. To make his current state more tolerable, Landon begins a journey, an odyssey, if you will, to find some relief by seeking his past to improve his future. His voyage of discovery is prompted by the discovery of six letters, which he inexplicably finds in a shipping crate he sent back to himself from Vietnam. They belong to six wartime buddies, who Landon plans to visit and belatedly deliver their respective letters. The letters are the mysterious glue that holds the story together and propels it forward. As if by black magic, one of the letters brings him back to an old college anti-war adversary, Josh Hannigan, who knows the location of Landon's lost love: Becky Morris. Unknown to Landon, Hannigan is the fortuitous acquaintance of one of the letter recipients: Johnnie Krupke. Krupke's letter links him to Hannigan and Corsican heroin dealers. The hunt is on to find Landon and the evil contents found in Krupke's letter that Landon has in his possession. Through a series of flashbacks, both to Landon's college days and his Vietnam experiences, the characters are defined and shaped. The major players all come together for a climactic ending in the psychedelic kingdom of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco during the turbulent year of 1968. To give added flavor for this evocative age, the songs of the 60's are included throughout as a thematic emphasis in the respective chapters they are inserted. Painted over a broad national and international canvas, Landon's Odyssey is truly an epic journey. It is a unique and relevant tale for a generation, one still coming to grips with the tumultuous tim