Circle of Shadows
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He kicked his shoes off , but he decided it would be too cold by morning to sleep without his clothes.
…Although he was dog-tired, he couldn’t fall asleep right away. His stomach growled constantly, long ropes of squeezing sound testified to the fact that for almost six days now he had had only the one hamburger to eat. He tried to put thoughts of food out of his mind. Back home, his mother would be finishing the supper dishes. She was thinking of him, no doubt, wondering where he was and if he was all right. His father would be sitting in the front room reading the newspaper …. Perhaps he too was wondering where he was— not out of any real concern, he thought bitterly, but angry that the son he had counted on to work on the farm that summer might not be around. …
He shifted his thoughts to his plight. He needed to fi nd work right away to earn money to buy food and find a place to stay. … He was on his own now, and he was starting from scratch.
I don’t care; I can make it on my own, he said to himself. No matter what happens, I’m never going back, and that’s for sure! He lay there in the darkness for a long time thinking of home and his mother and then finally drifted off to sleep.
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About the Book
It is the late 1940s, and Steve Bowman, a fifteen-year-old Nebraska farm boy who has run away from his abusive father, finds himself in a small Alabama town with only the clothes on his back. Unknown to Awillah Pike, an elderly woman who befriends him, he moves into a dilapidated shed in her backyard and sets about fashioning a new identity while avoiding discovery and being sent back to his father.
He manages to forge the documents necessary for him to get into high school and to get part-time jobs to support himself, but living in the shadows, his life becomes one of isolation, deception, and the constant threat of discovery.
In the segregationist South, Steve’s friendship with Taliaferro, a Negro teenager, must be kept secret. Romance finds him, and his growing relationship with his girlfriend, Laura, brightens his life and gives meaning to it. However, his life must be conducted in and out of shadows, and any meeting of the three most important people in his life, Awillah, Taliaferro, and Laura, could bring his carefully crafted façade tumbling down, sending him back to his father!
In this compelling tale, his accidental discovery sends the novel in unexpected directions, ending in a twist of fate that brings resolution to the story.
About the Author
Keith M. Heim grew up on a Nebraska farm in the 1940s. He holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill and served in the US Army and Foreign Service. A retired college professor, he lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.