The Father

What is the fate of America and each of us as individuals? As a literary fiction, The Father addresses these vital questions as it traces four generations of the Whitaker family through the evolution of modernity. Amongst modesty of private lives in 1926 rural America, John Whitaker is born to a conflation of events, signifying paths crossed by this world with another. Conflicts in John's family express widening chasms between changing views - from belonging to autonomy, religious belief to skepticism, self-sacrifice to self-indulgence. Eventually, John has a son of his own, Morgan. Morgan arrives in a materialistic world of public lives, captivated by potentials for greatness during America's ascendancy. Morgan also absorbs social movements against authority to wage combat with his father John as he watches America abandon reason to become ever more dogmatic. Realizing battles with his father were an impersonation of present fashion, history will not be rectified as John is dead. Since Morgan cannot correct the past he sets out to fix the future in a fistfight with society. Failing to change the world, Morgan spends his last dollar on an adventure to the Yucatan where fate provides a woman, commencing the love story of his life. Morgan tries to inoculate their son against the ills of humanity with the wonders of nature and ruins of man, but Morgan's son finds hope in the human race. Convinced he's found salvation for people and their civilizations, Morgan's son takes his message to a greater audience than his father, navigating a second Axial Age, fiercely attacked by Morgan on a global stage during The Great Upheaval of 2057.