Book Synopsis for ‘Good Shoes’
The setting for this book is in the early to mid 1970’s. It was the dawn of the Woodstock age, but the end of the idealistic 1960’s, with the ‘Death of the Hippie’.
This new dawn ushered in the communal living bubble, but it also ushered in the beginning of the ‘jive age’. The music promoters and musicians were moving their sounds to big venues, and consequently the big money that followed it. People of the flower power generation had always looked to the musicians for the truth and the way. Music and musicians became ‘businesses’ and the free or almost free concerts were becoming a thing of the past. The power was shifting and those that were taking the helms were self-promoting business people who would be referred to as ‘rip-off’ artists and the like. Drugs were also becoming big business.
Enter into this the young, eighteen year old Dan Martin. A poet, and somewhat idealistic youth, in a constant search for truth and beauty. He starts his journey entering college after attending a huge three day music festival. From the crowds of the ‘brothers and sisters’, who attended the concert and put an exclamation point on his youth, to the supposed entering of adulthood going into college. In this transition he would find that the only thing that would separate the two was a disappointing social structure at the school, and a new awareness of politics on the streets and the baggage they carried. As Dan grows disillusioned with school, and at the same time falls in love, he then meets fellow poets, and political organizers, and enters the political scene in order to look for truth there and impress his new love.
Love and Politics don’t always mix well, and Dan will learn many lessons along the way to his truth quest. Actually, the political world puts him in mortal danger and it’s not for the cause of freedom, but drugs. He spins out of a scene that he cannot consciously handle, and as a result loses the woman he was madly in love with. She, blinded by the power and excitement of the political struggle, gives her allegiance and love to the leader of the political people’s party, The S.R.C. (Students for a Righteous Cause).
The novel also focuses on our fate. Dan’s wandering brother arrives right at the time he is in despair over the loss of the woman he loved. His brother, Jerry, informs him that his dad has been in a terrible car accident and is needed at home. A different world awaits him when he goes to help his father in his car business. This story, is a story of loss and hope, and, in the end, time becomes a blur of cycles, and how we all hold on to our own piece of reality.