Our parents exposed my siblings and me to books throughout our childhoods. We read and reread the complete set of The Book of Knowledge, an early form of Google. Our parents took us to military post libraries, and our homes were always filled with books and at least a dozen magazine subscriptions, including National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Life, Boy’s Life, Time, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics.
My sister Kathleen attributes this exposure to her becoming an addict of literature, who decided early on to make it her career goal to become an English literature teacher. Throughout her career, she aimed to inspire her middle, high school, and college students to develop a love for reading by teaching works such as the archetypal hero in Star Wars, WWI poetry written by veterans, and Shakespearean plays like Romeo and Juliet and Henry V.
I am excited to share that Kathleen will be my discussant at my author event this coming Thursday in her hometown of Huntsville, AL, at Snail on the Wall Bookstore at 6:00 pm, and that she will discuss the search for my father in my investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, through the lens of the archetypal hero’s journey, similar to characters like Odysseus, Frodo, Moses, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker. The archetypal hero journey elements she discovered to be in my investigative memoir and will discuss with me include: 1. The Absent or Unknown Father; 2. Call to Adventure; 3. The Road of Trials & Tribulations; 4. The Supreme Ordeal; and 5. The Return with the Elixir.
Well, I be damned if my sister Kathleen wasn’t correct in identifying those elements in my odyssey. I didn’t consciously plan it that way. Another little miracle.
This author event will be like no other.
BTW, the picture below is how others have, and will continue to find, my sister Kathleen at her home.
James B. Wells 