Blossom Hill, Starfish & The Peculiar Institution: The Education of Charlie Rich

Breaking away from the comfortable insularity of small-town America, Charlie Rich thrusts himself into dangerous international waters. What he experiences there and his growing awareness of the racial divide at home cause him to reconsider the country he thought he knew and his place in it.

FROM THE BOOK: 'He's often reminded of the water hoses and dogs, the Rialto Theater, Medgar Evers, George Wallace and the innumerable injustices that screen endlessly on television ...'

'He's no longer the silent son of Middleton. No longer the dutiful Navy man. No longer the vendor of a nuclear apocalypse. No longer a cog in the gears of a mistaken military enterprise in Southeast Asia ...'