MY EMMA REMEMBERED is the story of two women who challenge the validity of American Institutional Segregation. It's also the story of a man maintaining his integrity and honor in the face of overwhelming threats to his humanity.
There had always been a sense of celebrity and excitement about the 'New College Students of 1960.' They were special; the fresh products of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's new liberality --- 'The New Frontier' concept. They were children of destiny who would make their way through dangerous and uncharted seas.
MY EMMA REMEMBERED is an unashamed romance of the 1960's which uses as its background the revolutionary consciousness of the era that was unpredictable, stormy, and violent. This novel encompasses five characters who come together from different ethnic backgrounds and experiences --- emphasizing the diverse uniqueness of their time.
Michael is the idealistic, pioneering Black radical; Nicholas is the Jewish ethnic who supports Civil Rights; Archie is the frail intellectual who believes in all causes and idolizes college athletes; Emma is the gentile female counterpart to Michael, rebelling against her middle-class parentage; Sam (Samantha) is the conservative bourgeois whose political consciousness is rooted in the 'gradual' process of change, rather than radicalism.
In 1967, New York magazine writer, Samantha O'Neal, encounters newly sworn-in 'Big City Mayor,' Michael Stahr , just after his inauguration in Cleveland, as the first African American mayor EVER elected in the United States. She recalls how they had gone to the University of Pittsburgh, in 1960. He, along with his friends, had been student activists, while she remained unprogressive in her views. Yet, she was always attracted to Michael because of his spunk and decisiveness and she set a personal vendetta to try and change his radical ideologies. They always fought....then!!
Now, at the inauguration, Sam is witnessing Michael's rise to fame and political power, and suddenly she feels that all the years since their college days must have mellowed him and cooled his fires.
This marks the beginning of a passionate love affair that leads to an equally passionate marriage. Sam believes in Michael's ability to become the best big city mayor in American history, but questions his unorthodox progressiveness in handling big city problems. And always, Michael's strongly held political beliefs come between them.
After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., rioting breaks out in major cities across the country. Michael is secretly called to Washington by an Intelligence Committee that informs him that his life is in danger --- one of his befriended community workers is alleged to be plotting a major riot in his city with communist inspired backing.
Michael refuses to believe that his progressive mayoral-ship is being brought to an end by a simple betrayall, and when he asks for Samantha's support, she denies him; feeling that now she has finally won the conservative vs. liberal battle. She also realizes that their personal war has come to an end.
They part, knowing what happiness they had cannot be recaptured.
There had always been a sense of celebrity and excitement about the 'New College Students of 1960.' They were special; the fresh products of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's new liberality --- 'The New Frontier' concept. They were children of destiny who would make their way through dangerous and uncharted seas.
MY EMMA REMEMBERED is an unashamed romance of the 1960's which uses as its background the revolutionary consciousness of the era that was unpredictable, stormy, and violent. This novel encompasses five characters who come together from different ethnic backgrounds and experiences --- emphasizing the diverse uniqueness of their time.
Michael is the idealistic, pioneering Black radical; Nicholas is the Jewish ethnic who supports Civil Rights; Archie is the frail intellectual who believes in all causes and idolizes college athletes; Emma is the gentile female counterpart to Michael, rebelling against her middle-class parentage; Sam (Samantha) is the conservative bourgeois whose political consciousness is rooted in the 'gradual' process of change, rather than radicalism.
In 1967, New York magazine writer, Samantha O'Neal, encounters newly sworn-in 'Big City Mayor,' Michael Stahr , just after his inauguration in Cleveland, as the first African American mayor EVER elected in the United States. She recalls how they had gone to the University of Pittsburgh, in 1960. He, along with his friends, had been student activists, while she remained unprogressive in her views. Yet, she was always attracted to Michael because of his spunk and decisiveness and she set a personal vendetta to try and change his radical ideologies. They always fought....then!!
Now, at the inauguration, Sam is witnessing Michael's rise to fame and political power, and suddenly she feels that all the years since their college days must have mellowed him and cooled his fires.
This marks the beginning of a passionate love affair that leads to an equally passionate marriage. Sam believes in Michael's ability to become the best big city mayor in American history, but questions his unorthodox progressiveness in handling big city problems. And always, Michael's strongly held political beliefs come between them.
After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., rioting breaks out in major cities across the country. Michael is secretly called to Washington by an Intelligence Committee that informs him that his life is in danger --- one of his befriended community workers is alleged to be plotting a major riot in his city with communist inspired backing.
Michael refuses to believe that his progressive mayoral-ship is being brought to an end by a simple betrayall, and when he asks for Samantha's support, she denies him; feeling that now she has finally won the conservative vs. liberal battle. She also realizes that their personal war has come to an end.
They part, knowing what happiness they had cannot be recaptured.
