Archive - August 22, 2022

  Kansas Kaleidoscope by Mark G. Wentling (Honduras (1967-69) & Togo (1970-73) Wild Lark Books August 2022 186 pages $4.99 (Kindle); $19.99 (Hardcover) • A young boy’s life in mid-20th-century America persistently and unpredictably veers off course in this novel.In many ways, 11-year-old Marky is a typical kid in 1950s Kansas. He collects baseball cards like other boys his age, goes fishing and hunting with his father, and has a good shot at winning his town’s annual turtle race. But his family is not immune to hardships. Marky and his siblings, for example, rarely see their dad, Boyd, who works the graveyard shift at an aircraft plant 30 miles away. Their mother, Gerry, is a manic-depressive; Marky adores her but is perpetually worried about her oscillating moods. After two decades of marriage and six children, Marky’s parents engage in arguments that escalate in frequency and violence. Intense fights send Gerry . . .