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Saving Moses
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 28 2022
Pages: 254
Weight: 0.56
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Saving Moses is a coming-of-age adventure built around one unforgettable summer in 1961. The novel follows Milton (Milty) Marshal and his three friends, Mark, Davy, and Floyd, as they roam the woods, canals, and abandoned dumping grounds surrounding Dillardtown, their South Florida mill town home. The story captures the innocence of youth in a time when the out-of-doors was the boys' playground and friendship, loyalty and a belief anything was possible shaped their dreams and schemes.
What begins with bike rides, a treehouse, neighborhood pranks, and clashes with local bullies grows into a plan to protect Moses, a huge alligator the boys discover in the canal where they swim. The story is framed by Milton, now an old man, returning to the remains of Dillardtown with his daughter and grandchildren, finally ready to explain a tragic event during that long-ago summer for which he feels responsible. Saving Moses is a fiction book based on actual events the author experienced in South Florida, which gives the boys' world a lived-in quality even when the adventure becomes larger than life.
The four boys consider the wilderness around Dillardtown to be their own country with its hideouts, secrets and landmarks, like Tarzan Vines and Black Creek canal where they find Moses. Urged on by Davy, his three companions agree to not only keep their gator a secret but to catch and sell it to a local snake farm with a crocodile pen.
Daily feedings of Moses, scavenged raft materials, stolen paddles, and homemade engineering go into building their raft but trouble has homed in on their activity. Threats from two neighborhood trouble-makers lead to their discovery of Moses, ending in a tragedy that Milton turns into a lifelong judgement of his own character.
The concluding chapter gives the novel its emotional purpose. Two of Milton's childhood friends arrive for a long overdue reunion. Stories of mischief and adventure end with an unexpected confession. Taken aback by Milton's lifetime of misplaced remorse, his two childhood companions reveal his memory has preserved his guilt more faithfully than it preserved the truth.
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