New Roads to Old Places

<p>A segregated state.</p><p>A fundamentalist school.</p><p>A youthful trio of clever mischievous buddies daring to play a game of truth and consequences. </p><p></p><p>Set in Montgomery Alabama during the 1950s and '60s this razor-sharp novel is a coming-of-age tale of bold defiant teenager Pip and his pals who question and baffle unconscionable authority in the most restrictive school in the most pivotal city in one of America's most turbulent times. How do they find the good path in a world stacked against goodness? </p><p></p><p>Author Philip Norris Ph.D. born in 1948 spent his formative years in Montgomery the place that transformed from the Cradle of the Confederacy to the Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. Young Norris had a unique contemporaneous front-row perspective at ground zero of change. For example he was able to eavesdrop on nation-changing political conversations between his father a labor union executive and his dad's friend noted human rights lawyer Clifford Durr the attorney who got Rosa Parks out of jail in 1955. This a first novel explores the poignancy and challenges of that incongruous landmark era. The fast-paced well-plotted tale will remind readers how Dickens and Twain treated serious topics with equal parts humor and blunt honesty. </p><p></p>