ACCIDENTAL QUESTS

The Leap Year Series is a trilogy of coming of age stories of three teenagers, each at successive ages, each growing up during a different leap year in the 1960s - a decade which began flowered in hope, only to steadily wither as it became infected by systemic poisoning of increased turmoil and despair. An intelligent high school freshman endures the established, conventional discipline as he causes trouble and problems, either accidentally or by design; desperately struggles to exhibit his athletic ability; suffers from a parent's abandonment and aftermath; all exacerbated as he begins to seriously encounter teenage girls; ultimately forced into making some hard choices. An older high school boy, almost a loner, cannot deal with the military death of his father whom he worshiped, especially when his father's reputation is called into question, yet continues to emulate him while a related blackmail and murder occur; he awaits baseball season while pursuing dating haphazardly with his attempts failing to fulfill his dreams until he sees 'her', whose true essence is more complex, even mystical than her delightful, warm persona exudes. A pampered, highly attractive, self-centered college girl wants excitement in her perceived boring life, bolstered by her endless string of boyfriend failures; the return of a lost letter thrusts her into an insidious involvement with the sadistic campus drug pusher, his activities, his followers; convictions the world is in chaos and her life in disorder become reinforced during her travels, as she is exposed to political crises and personal pain; returning home, she experiences the hidden ugliness of war, the continuing political upheaval while campus brutality seeps into the town. Within The Leap Year Series, integral persons reappear and are interwoven throughout parts of the trilogy; some for brief periods of time, others longer. Many lesser ones also return for short appearances or mention.