Salvation Is to Be Found in Her

<p>Against the backdrop of race riots the Vietnam War and the countercultural revolution Manhattan-based Luther Garatdjian comes of age. The second youngest in a troubled family Luther feels as a college sophomore the proof is conclusive: he was not born with the right stuff to succeed in life. And yet on the cusp of the Summer of Love in 1967 an unexpected door opens. A budding artist from an upper middle class family Mona Van Dine represents his hope of escape from the familial turmoil and failure he has witnessed. </p><p>When Mona leaves New York City to attend art school in Boston Luther fears that she will leave him behind as well. Dependent on amphetamines and alcohol to ease his sense of intellectual inferiority he grows increasingly desperate to keep Mona close as she remains his lifeline. The sexual instincts that lead him astray are in line as he sees it with the national zeitgeist and serve in his clouded mind as insurance against annihilation should Mona now in a distant city herself begin to stray. </p><p>The winds of change blowing in the culture affect Luther in other ways as well. The white Afro he grows is less his freak flag than cover and protection from taunts about his misshapen head. A new more voluble Luther begins to emerge. At times contentious belittling even grossly offensive he fills the air with pronouncements on everyone from Cervantes and Norman Mailer to little Bobby Kennedy and dawdle dancer Eugene McCarthy and offers his musings on such things as the nature of time writer's block (What's the problem? It's only words) and history. In a state of grandiose lunacy he accompanies the astronauts on their lunar mission has a meetup with Charles Manson and lends an ear to a distraught Teddy Kennedy following Chappaquiddick. </p><p>Following his arrest and brief incarceration on a drug charge he has an epiphany that leads him into the renting office of the rooming house the family manages. The sums of money he extracts unbeknownst to others he rationalizes as simply claiming his patrimony. </p><p>When a tragedy befalls the Van Dines Luther finds that all is not as it initially appeared with Mona and her family. He discovers that the family he has run toward material blessings aside bears a disturbing similarity to the family he has run from and that the life he has been pursuing may not bring him to the finish line he is seeking.</p><p><br></p>