Beneath the Rock - Birk, Tommy

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Résumé :
In this unique novel, Tommy Birk evokes the anguish of combat veterans who leave their wars but whose wars don't leave them. He explores their helplessness to stop the strange osmotic process by which their pain passes on to their families. In this passionate and powerful story, Ernie and Gunny Balbach, who had fought on opposite sides during WW2, are now joined by Ernie's son, Timmy-an equally damaged veteran of the still-in-progress Vietnam War-and live as outcasts at Piankashaw Rock, where they feel safe in the company of other misfits. Ernie and Gunny, sustained by the women who love them, and Timmy, in love with the beautiful but conflicted Maria, all prodded by a mystic priest with his own dark secrets, come to realize they and their families will escape the vicious circles of history and find redemption only when they take on and defeat the evil that haunts them.

Biographie:
Tommy Birk was born and raised in Jasper, a predominantly German descendant city of 14,000 located in Southwestern Indiana. His interests include the history of German and other waves of immigration to America. He reads novels and histories, and he studies cutting edge and futuristic science. He particularly enjoys fictional writing which includes real historical events and imagined future events. Tommy traces his fascination with woodlands back to his German forbears from Bavaria and the Black Forest. Tommy's family owns forested lands and these spark many of his ideas. But his writings go further. Tommy has been an activist of the type that embraces a changing world which struggles with new questions of right and wrong daily. His writings reflect these feelings. Tommy lives in Jasper, jogs and lifts weights to stay in shape, and indulges his passions for writing, law, government, and politics. He is a graduate of the Purdue University School of Engineering and the Vanderbilt University School of Law.