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Book: Confessions from the Pumpkin Patch (The Soul Encounters Book 1) by Karlyle Tomms

categories: Book, Hippies, Civil Rights, Vietnam War, The 60's, Racism, Drugs, Alcoholism, San Francisco, Nashville, Pennsylvania, Family Conflict, Historical Fiction

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Karlyle Tomms

about this book: This first novel won the New Apple Awards medal for general fiction and was endorsed by Marideth Sisco who was instrumental in the soundtrack for and had a role in the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner and four time Oscar nominated film, "Winter's Bone" starring Jennifer Lawrence.

This is a story about the 1960's, about hippies, the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. It is a story about the times and the turmoil of the times, but it is also a story about a girl who is trying to find herself. Lovella is the only child of John and Drucilla Fuchs. She is a small town girl growing up in a time when America is flipping out. Riots and assassinations abound. There are protests, and racial tensions. Her ineffectual father, whom she adores, is an alcoholic, and her mother tries to control him, as well her. She can't wait to get out of there, get away from her overbearing mother, get on with life and see more of the world than Climax, Pennsylvania. In the meantime, she does everything she can to rebel and work her mother's conservative nerves including getting arrested for underage drinking and indecent exposure.

In college, Lovella meets an ugly hippie named Earl, but looks are deceiving. He is actually the son of an extremely wealthy and successful business man, and is being forced by his father to get a business degree so he can take over the family empire when the time arrives. Earl has been secretly rebelling against his father's conservative ideals, much more subtly than Lovella had been with her mother. Earl gets Lovella involved with the anti-war and civil rights movement, but when his Dad spots them in the background of a news broadcast at a Martin Luther King rally, he is disowned and has to fend for himself. He convinces Lovella to run away to the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 where she encounters people and ideas that she never knew existed. Earl's friend, Screech, gets them into drugs and a whole lot more before it is all over, and when they come back home, they have to face challenges and choices they never thought they would. Lovella has to confront her own internal demons and subtle prejudices. She also has to deal with having her close friend join the Marines and get sent to Vietnam. As well, when her father dies, her festering hatred of her mother boils over.

In time, Lovella discovers that life is not what she expected and that there are many types of turmoil in the world, most of which are internal. She discovers that people, including her own mother, are not necessarily what they appear to be on the surface, and she discovers a family secret that brings her full circle into maturity and an understanding of life contrary to what she had always believed.