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Goin' Through the Motions

$5.00

Author: Moony McNelly

ISBN 978-1-951985-60-8 (softcover);
978-1-951985-61-5 (eBook)

316 pages

Goin' Through the Motions: Last Renderin's of a Quester and Rounder, most of which is interior monologue, employs a stylized dialect best described as "Southern Mountain English." In 1984, terminally ill and confined to a VA hospital, John Henry Shields reviews his life.Prelude, a dialogue between John Henry's son Martin and his wife in 2012, opens the novel. The Prologue to Part One, presents John Henry on a day in 1932, when he undergoes an epiphany that sets him on his life's quest to live a "true life." In Part One, John Henry recollects various events in his life and begins to question if his life has been worthwhile. The Prologue to Part Two is set in the Airborne training camp in Fort Benning, GA, 1942, where on his first jump from a C-47, the awakening he experienced as a boy in 1932, is resurrected. In Part Two, John Henry continues to recall events in his life as well as choices he has made, some of which please him, while others fill him with regret. After his death, his wife Myra closes the action from 1984. The last section of the novel, Fortuitous Epilogue, recounts the dreams of John Martin Shields. In Prelude, Martin mentioned these to his wife Peggy as having occurred on six successive nights, before the Sunday marking the 28th anniversary of his father's death.

Type: books

Vendor: Moony McNelly

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Eye Opening Story

This novel is a poignant and thought provoking exploration of the struggles of a WWII vet thrust into the horrors of war from his humble beginnings growing up on a small North Georgia farm. Uneducated and with limited life experiences, his eyes are opened to a strange and unfamiliar world that forever changes him and leads him to question life and it's value. Upon his return home from his experiences as a paratrooper, he juggles his personal life with haunting memories of war. The story is laced with both sorrow and humor as he searches for truth and meaningful closure in his life. Being written in Southern dialect adds authenticity to the tale, and the reader can navigate it easily once becoming acclimated. Well worth the time to read!