Embers in the Ashes (Of History and Indifference)

in 1993 an historian wrote: “... The lynching was especially atrocious: Two young black men were seized, dragged into the woods, and there chained to trees and tortured to death with blowtorches while a howling crowd of whites cursed and taunted them. Photographs were made of the dead bodies....” (K.S. Davis) This historical novel – ground-breaking in its emotional and graphic intensity – portrays the impact of that atrocity (1937) on two empathetic boys who didn’t taunt, but secretly snapped pictures of the living, screaming victims (ironically, one given FDR’s surname) – and desperately tried to stop it! Two against 500 (some came by school bus). After failing, they fled in despair – but with their Brownie Eagle Eye. Now on a compelling mission – because they’d been ‘Ou t T h e r e .’ Shattered, then galvanized, by the failures and heart-breaks of Book I, ‘Einstein’ Brian and ‘Maestro’ Marcus become avenging angels in Book II, sworn to strike ‘Preacher-Creature Cecil’ and his ‘henchmen from hell’ with the swords of retribution, self-defense, and ‘un-Southern’ justice. Kids no more, they begin to act like God: ‘Somebody has to...!’ With images of brutality preserved in camera, conscience, and nightmares, they write to Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and accept their invitation to dinner at the White House. Re-committed to the most profound ‘what-if’ of the Twentieth Century, the boys mutually pledge themselves to a daunting ‘rendezvous with destiny.’ And a Time Capsule ticket to 5,000 years into the future from Albert Einstein....