The Distant Whisper

In his first novel, Finding Marco, author Ken Cancellara describes how, after years of corporate activity, the novels protagonist (Mark Gentile) has a personal awakening in realizing that his ambition for material success has overshadowed his need for happiness and a life of ethics and morality. Sun-drenched memories of life as it once was in Gentiles hometown of Acerenza, Italy call him back to reconnect with his roots and with the simple life he had left behind a half century earlier. In Acerenza, Gentile took the lessons given to him, as a child, by his grandfather that what matters in life is ethical behaviour without expecting anything in return. In his poetic and eloquent sequel , The Distant Whisper, the author continues to quell the turbulence in his soul caused by the continuing struggle between the two competing forces of raw ambition and the need for a life framed by morality. He takes the reader through an odyssey of beautiful descriptions of the Italian countryside in the Amalfi coast and of the Southern Italians who inhabit that beautiful corner of the world. While continuing to bask in this indescribable beauty, the protagonist is being slowly pulled back by a distant whisper to the corporate life he had left behind in North America to pull the corporation he had left behind back from the brink. Cancellaras recounting of the corporate manoeuvres to save the company could only have been described so realistically by a person who had had hands-on experience as a business attorney and as an executive for many years. But will Mark Gentiles soul finally find peace in the end? Will he return permanently to his place a birththe place where he had his epiphany or remain in his adopted homeland of Canada? The novels running theme is finding a balance between societally-imposed ambitions and a more reflective way of life. It is the internal struggle that society will be facing more as our younger generations become disillusioned with the pressures of maintaining career obligations and our aging populations as they enter the more mature and reflective periods in their lives.