I nod.
“Just give me a second here,” Will says. “Gotta find the right music for it.”
“For what?” I ask.
Just then Bob Dylan’s voice comes through the speakers. Will puts the truck in gear. Then he reaches down in the seat next to him, pulls out a piece of paper, and hands it to me.
It’s folded in squares and stained dark in several places. I open it up. It’s Dad’s map.
I look at him.
“What do you say we go find us that fighter jet?”
He twists the key in the ignition, and the truck engine roars to life again.
* * *
1 “The Week.” National Review. July 16, 1968.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Annette Kirk and the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan: they hosted me for a summer and made available the center’s private library as a haven to complete Last Summer Boys. When it comes to writing, I am convinced there is no better or more hauntingly reflective environment in America.
The University of Pennsylvania provided a fellowship that made possible my stay in Michigan that summer.
My agent, Dean Krystek, is as warm as he is devoted to the authors and stories he serves. A Vietnam veteran, he understood the story in a way more deeply than I ever could. This book would not have been possible without his passion and expertise.
I am beyond grateful to editor Alicia Clancy and the peerless Lake Union Publishing team. They made my first encounter with the publishing industry little short of a dream. I felt part of the process at every step.
Lastly, I owe the deepest debt of gratitude to my family: my parents, for instilling a love of storytelling; my siblings, for being the most honest critics; and my wife, for her endless patience and encouragement. I love you all so very much.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Rivers grew up along the creeks of the Brandywine Valley in Delaware and Pennsylvania. A graduate of the University of Delaware, he earned an MPA from the University of Pennsylvania as a Truman Scholar, one of sixty national awards given annually for a career in public service. Bill worked in the US Senate before serving as speechwriter for US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, developing classified and unclassified messages on national security and traveling throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. He and his family live outside Washington, DC, where he still keeps a piece of a crashed fighter jet they found in the hills of southeastern Pennsylvania.