John Reid

Salt City Blues John Reid

This novel is set in the fictional Pennsylvania city of Salt City. Salt City is a major manufacturing city and home to a major university, Salt City University, SCU, a school most noted for it's football team and it's radical leftwing protesters. The story begins in 1970 and ends in 1975, with a brief epilogue in 2000. The story examines many of the cultural changes and upheavals of this period of history. This would include anti-war protests, racism and integration, drug experimentation and addiction, sexual freedom and perversion, and the early beginning stages of woman's liberation. The story has four main characters and is told thru their eyes and lives. They include Mike Provok, a middle-aged construction worker who at first scoffs at the young hippies moving into his neighborhood but eventually ends up becoming one himself. Tom Freeman is an idealistic young student. He becomes involved with leftwing radicals. Tom eventually becomes disillusioned with the far left and he and his girlfriend move to the suburbs. Rusty Sparks is one wild and crazy guy. Rusty is a Vietnam veteran, a drug and weapons dealer, street fighter and bar brawler, and eventually, murderer and escaped fugitive. Jenny Sanchez is a young black woman torn between the black culture of her youth and the new integrated counter culture. Torn between two worlds, Jenny unwisely marries white. A bisexual soldier on his way overseas. Upon her husbands return, they have an unhappy marriage and separate. Jenny then has affairs with a black militant and a white fraternity boy, but both affairs end badly and Jenny reluctantly reconciles with her white husband. In addition to the four main characters there are a dozen supporting characters who also play key roles as the story unfolds. This novel is a look back one of the most historic events of the 20th century, and the people who lived it and made it happen.