Since its release in October of 2006, the novel Reaching Home has been a tool for teaching resilience through storytelling.
Reaching Home tells the futuristic story of a young Maine fisherman who discovers a manuscript written by his grandfather in the year 2013. Seen through the eyes of the grandfather, Lee Brazil, the story involves the man’s mistaken implication in a terrorist plot, incarceration and journey back home to Maine. Along the way he meets interesting allies and must confront his fears and question his perception of good and evil.
Excerpt
Dr. Lee Brazil, a southern refuge, has never made peace with the South he grew up in as a child born without a left hand; nor with the prosthetic hook he wears and the nuclear industry he blames for his disability. While researching material for his book, Ten Years in the Not So New South, in Pine Grove, Tennessee, the Atomic City, Lee attends a SOMOP meeting, Save Our Mountain and Our People, an activist group working to shut down the Pine Grove Labs incinerator for nuclear waste. When an explosion at the Labs occurs, Lee is caught up in the ensuing disaster and implicated in what is mistakenly believed to be a terrorist plot. Managing to escape local authorities, his harrowing journey back home to Maine forces him to seek refuge in a number of unlikely places and solicit help from a number of unlikely allies, including Jean Kudrick, the lost love of his youth. Now on the radar of federal agents tracking a terrorist cell in Boston, Lee is arrested before he reaches home. He is offered a deal: help the FBI foil a terrorist plot and avoid prosecution. In confronting the politics of fear, Lee must challenge his perception of good and evil and struggle with the disabling inner conflicts of his disability to determine his course in reaching home.
Professional Reviews
Richard C. Lumb, criminologist and contributing
Each of us harbors fear and apprehension and in the dark of night, the mind can extend the shadow of doubt and worry. Reaching Home draws the reader from story to real life associations compelling us to relive and confront our own experience.
Dr. Gianna M. Settin, author of Perspectives on Growth
Reaching Home affords us a discerning and deeply human view into the political-psychological realities of disability in America. Down to earth, diverting and dynamic, the characters reflect the struggle we all confront to surmount our own differences, and discover our strengths, as they lead us in this moving journey home. Inspiring!
Don Nalls, Jr.
Ron Breazeale demonstrates a Faulknerian understanding of his native south leavened with the wisdom and understanding of human nature gleaned from years of psychological practice.
Re-Release! No longer back-listed. Return to the Olde Ways. The hustle and bustle of modern day life has brought many of us to a quick fix attitude.This book is for those of you who are fed up; have looked at your life and your loved ones and realize
Re-Release! No longer back-listed. Return to the Olde Ways. The hustle and bustle of modern day life has brought many of us to a quick fix attitude.This book is for those of you who are fed up; have looked at your life and your loved ones and realize
