Longworth (Hardcover)

This is a coming of age story about a young man, Carson Longworth, who will come to discover he knows virtually nothing about what's happening in the world around him. In high school his life consists of music, dance, dating, and good times. Set in the 1960's early 1970's when the Vietnam War is beginning to heat up, Carson has not given a good deal of thought to anything beyond the here and now and much less to what is happening around him. Having grown up "under a lucky star," he just assumes that he merely needs to exist and good things will happen to him. Carson wrestles with his personal demons and the general inanity of the world. When he leaves high school and attempts to tackle the world at large, though, he finds the relative freedom outside the cocoon somewhat more than he can handle. Carson's "relative world of plenty" and his historical insulation from the "real world" contributes to the perception that he is aloof. In reality, he just doesn't know how to relate to people. He has no childhood memories of any close friendships, as he found himself in a new place every few years. As such, his outlook on life has been shaped somewhat differently from his peers. This holds particularly true for his relationships with women. He simply had little idea how to relate to women in any meaningful manner until he met Kathy Wilkerson. After high school, Carson spent two academically forgettable, but socially memorable, years in college. He was eventually drafted by the Army, but joined the Marine Corps, because he 'wanted to be a man', an experience that shaped him indelibly. His experiences in the Vietnam War helped create his antagonistic outlook. He could not come to terms with the intent of the war nor the manner in which it was being conducted. He found himself on the outside looking in. He became, contrary to most who join the Marine Corps, a liberal thinker and a skeptic who became increasingly frustrated with the inconsistencies that he observed in the conduc