Bøger af Doug McGuinn

WAVE GOODBYE TO MUHAMMAD is set in Libya in late 1956 and early 1957. Like today, many of the North African and Middle Eastern countries were in turmoil. Egypt, to the east of Libya, had a new president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who wanted to nationalize the Suez Canal, and, to Libya's west, the French were indiscriminately killing Algerian Arabs. In Libya itself, many of the Libyans were demanding the closure of Wheelus Air Base, a sprawling American air force base located a few miles outside of Tripoli. During the time period the novel takes place, Libya is undergoing great changes - going from being one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest. The main reason for this tumultuous change? The discovery of oil underneath the Sahara. Not only is Libya's fate determined by an inhospitable desert, but also by inhospitable politics. The main characters are Wilma Rodgers, the eleven-year-old daughter of S/Sgt. Sam Rodgers, a cook at the NCO messhall at Wheelus Air Base, and eleven-year-old Leila bint Jamal al-Rihan, the cousin of Muhammad ibn Wadi al-Rihan, the Rodgerses' houseboy and brother of Younis ibn Wadi al-Rihan. Younis is the editor of LIBYA AL-HURRA (FREE LIBYA) and president of the pro-Nasser Literary Society, which meets at the Bani Hilal Bookshop, across from the Rodgerses' apartment on Mizran Street. Despite their vastly different worldviews - Wilma, an American, who lives in Tripoli's New City; Leila, a Libyan, who lives in Tripoli's Old City - Wilma and Leila become best of friends. Also, despite the political turmoil in Libya and its surrounding countries, Wilma, Leila, et al. try to live as normal lives as possible, sometimes a daunting task, to say the least. "A sense of fairness, and not liking a bully picking on someone weaker - it seemed to be universal. At least among children. Grownups, now that was a different story!" Other characters include boy-crazy Libby Ann Smith, who is also eleven years old and whose father is a cook at the Officers' Open Mess; Georgette Westley, the eleven-year-old rebellious daughter of Col. George Westley, the commander of Wheelus Air Base; and Martin Montgomery, the twelve-year-old son of Capt. Nigel Montgomery, who is with the British army's 10th. Armoured Division Signal Regiment in Tripoli. Although many of the characters are young adults, WAVE GOODBYE TO MUHAMMAD is written to appeal to readers regardless of their ages. Praise for WAVE GOODBYE TO MUHAMMAD: "I was hooked by the intro. Excellent writing - it really flows." - Amazon Editor Reviewer #1 "The historical anchoring with the political details of the time period was very well done." - Amazon Editor Reviewer #2

All nine-going-on-ten-year-old Wade McHenry wanted to do at the beginning of the summer of 1956 was to join his daddy, an Air Force serviceman, in North Africa. The Suez Canal crisis, however, delayed the plans. While Wade and his mother waited for the crisis to end, Wade had to risk his live to save the life of a gravely ill relative, work against time to exonerate his hero, who had been accused of a crime Wade was convinced he did not commit, and suffer from what Wade saw as a betrayal by a much older woman with whom he had fallen madly in love. Before the summer was over, Wade learned that heroes are not super¬humans, but ordinary people capable of extraordinary acts of courage.

The Wilmington, North Carolina firm of Bannister, Cowan & Company, in its glowing report titled, just as glowingly, The Resources of North Carolina: Its Natural Wealth, Condition, and Advantages, as Existing in 1869. Presented to the Capitalists and People of the Central and Northern States, wrote that "[t]he three most noted copper mines in the northwestern part of the State are the Elk Knob, Peach Bottom, and Ore Knob. ... In the southeast corner of Ashe County is another mine of some note, known as Gap Creek [aka the Copper Knob Mine]." THERE'S COPPER IN THEM THAR HILLS! contains the histories of those four mines, which, as Bannister, Cowan & Company pointed out in its report, were all located in the mountains of northwest North Carolina: the Elk Knob Mine in Watauga County, the Copper Knob Mine and the Ore Knob Mine in Ashe County, and the Peach Bottom Mine in Alleghany County.

"To hell with the ET&WNC, we'll start our own railroad!" Those words were spoken in anger by Lewis Gasteinger, general manager of the newly formed Pittsburgh Lumber Company in Carter County, Tennessee, to William Flinn, president of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania construction firm of Booth & Flinn, which had recently, in 1909, purchased 12,00 acres of virgin-timber land in the Dennis Cove area of northeastern Tennessee. The lumber company needed a way to take the finished wood to market. They approached a local railroad called the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina (aka "Tweetsie"), seeking to build a spur from the firm's sawmill, located about one-half mile east of the Carter County village of Hampton. No satisfactory arrangement, however, could be agreed upon. So the Pittsburgh Lumber Company decided to build its own railroad. Incorporated in April 1910, the railroad ran from Elizabethton to Laban, Tennessee, a distance of 14.9 miles, the mainline mostly following the Laurel Fork of the Doe River.

Bumbling to Zion is set in the years 1966 and 1967, probably two of the most turbulent years of the Vietnam War era. Matt McCoy, the main character, is fresh out of high school and needs to enroll in an institute of higher learning (any institute) in order to receive a student deferment from the draft. Because of his bad high school grades, Matt is only accepted at Pure White Light Bible College in Flinthill, Tennessee. The pro-war beliefs at the ultra conservative college and Matt's anti-war beliefs are regularly in conflict. Matt, however, ends up falling in love with one of the college's fundamentalist students and befriending the preacher of the Sink Mountain Signs' Following Church of the Prince of Peace, whose congregation follows the signs mentioned in Mark 16: signs like speaking in tongues, drinking deadly things, and taking up serpents. To his surprise, Matt discovers that the beliefs of the signs' followers, and his own anti-war, anti-government beliefs aren't that much different. During the summer of 1967 (the "Summer of Love") Matt goes to Haight-Ashbury, where he gets involved in the whole hippie scene. A disillusioned Matt McCoy, however, escapes from Haight- Ashbury and returns to his native east Tennessee, where, he realizes, he belonged all along.

THE "VIRGINIA CREEPER" is a historically accurate (although the author admits having to use his "poetic license" a few times) novel about the rise and fall of the lumber/railroad town of Elkland (present-day Todd), N.C, the rise and fall of a lumber/passenger train, the Virginia-Carolina (aka the "Virginia Creeper"), and the rise and fall of a lumber company (the Hassinger Lumber Company) and the company town (Konnarock, Va.) the lumber company created.

Writing this book has helped me psychologically. It was, in part, written to help me deal with the death of my eldest son, Jamie, who was killed at the age of 23, on October 5, 2006, the day before my 59th birthday. The seed for this book was planted in my head while I was practicing my kick with a kickboard at the swimming pool at the gym I go to. For some reason, I had this crazy idea of quitting teaching and becoming a lifeguard. The idea of sitting high up there in a lifeguard stand and thinking great thoughts between heroic rescues of saving people from drowning, really appealed to me. This book is sort of a reverse coming-of-age story; maybe a going-of-age story. In it are a series of essays about my growing up and my growing old, as well as an on-going novella based loosely on my swim clinics.

Lonnie-Lew Hensley, a likeable, but sometimes short-on-common sense "good ol' boy" type, ends up marrying Daisy Faith Grogan, a big-breasted vocalist/keyboard player in a four-piece country/Western band, who specializes in performing cheatin' songs. Lonnie-Lew and Daisy Faith's marriage--all two months, twelve days and eight hours of it--is, to say the least, a rocky one. Lonnie-Lew learns the hard way that Daisy Faith regards the lyrics of the cheatin' songs she sings as just make-believe; Daisy Faith makes it clear that "If I ever catch a man of mine cheatin' on me for real, I gar-un-damn-tee you he'll never cheat on me again!" Lonnie-Lew is visited by the ghost of his uncle Norville "Knock 'em Through the Wall" Lewis, a former dirt-track racecar driver, who, in 1961, mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again.The hilariously funny Sing Me a Cheatin' Song, Daisy Faith, which is set in the North Carolina foothills and the mountains of northwestern North Carolina and northeastern Tennessee during the summer of 1983, is Doug McGuinn's third novel.