What an incredible author event Highland Books hosted for my investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, at the Mary C. Jenkins Center in Brevard, NC! Over one hundred people attended, making this event almost as popular as my memoir’s initial launch. What made it also truly special was that I was in conversation with my brother, Dr. Ora Wells, who is also a character in my book.
Much of our discussion centered around three photographs of our father that are in my memoir and several letters he wrote, which confirmed that he was a whistleblower throughout his career in the US Army and the State Department. We shared our emotions with the audience, particularly through one poignant letter he wrote to his oldest brother, Isaac, in which my brother revealed our father’s “Gethsemane moment.” In this letter, our father, like Christ, expressed his struggle with impending events, including his own suffering and death, for refusing to bow down to the corruption and injustice that surrounded him. Our father concluded the letter with the heartfelt line:
”Live hard, die young, and have beautiful memories.
Your soldier brother. Why?”
James B. Wells 