BLOG TOUR: The Road to Delano by John DeSimone @SuzyAPBookTours @rarebirdlit #theroadtodelano

Thought-provoking and powerful—The Road to Delano by John DeSimone touches on issues of justice, destiny, and equality that resonate from the time of the novel through today. A story you won’t soon forget.

In the 1930s, Sugar Duncan and his new wife Shirly drive down the road to Delano and purchase land to set up roots for their family. Their son, Jack Duncan, grows up in Delano with dreams to leave it behind. When Sugar dies, Shirley is left to raise Jack on her own. Times are hard for Shirley, but she does her best to keep things moving for her and Jack, now they are alone.

Jack is a baseball player and he dreams of getting a scholarship to play in college, leaving Delano and the troubles that plague the town behind. It is a highly political time for a small town like Delano. Jack’s father Sugar was a grape grower, and Jack doesn’t know how deeply the labor strike involved his own father. But Jack does know about the financial troubles his mother is going through. In an effort to save their property, Jack drives an old combine into town to sell it.

When a friend of his father’s brings shocking news…

A police report that indicates Jack’s father was murdered. Jack is shocked and needs to know more. He begins to look into the truth of what happened to his father. And at the heart of it all he finds corruption and darkness buried at the very heart of Delano.

When Jack brings in his best friend Adrien to help, Adrien finds himself in jail, a situation that may ruin his future for good. Now, Jack must find what happened to his father, help Adrien, and help his mother before everything is lost.

The writing is compelling and I found the story easy to lose myself in. John DeSimone knows how to pull me out of the present and right into the mid 1900s in a small town like Delano. It’s the sort of novel that makes you think about how stories like this happen all over our country in small towns, and we never hear about them. It is such a story of America, in a way, and what many lived like in a time that labor politics often led to death and murder. The rich want to stay rich on the backs of those who do the work. And sometimes, those that stand up for what is right don’t get the justice they seek.

A fantastic novel of historical fiction that I highly recommend.

Thank you to Suzy Approved Book Tours and Rare Bird for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Book

Jack Duncan is a high school senior whose dream is to play baseball in college and beyond―as far away from Delano as possible. He longs to escape the political turmoil surrounding the labor struggles of the striking fieldworkers that infests his small ag town. Ever since his father, a grape grower, died under suspicious circumstances ten years earlier, he’s had to be the sole emotional support of his mother, who has kept secrets from him about his father’s involvement in the ongoing labor strife.

With their property on the verge of a tax sale, Jack drives an old combine into town to sell it so he and his mother don’t become homeless. On the road, an old friend of his father’s shows up and hands him the police report indicating Jack’s father was murdered. Jack is compelled to dig deep to discover the entire truth, which throws him into the heart of the corruption endemic in the Central Valley. Everything he has dreamed of is at stake if he can’t control his impulse for revenge.

While Jack’s girlfriend, the intelligent and articulate Ella, warns him not to so anything to jeopardize their plans of moving to L.A., after graduation, Jack turns to his best friend, Adrian, a star player on the team, to help to save his mother’s land. When Jack’s efforts to rescue a stolen piece of farm equipment leaves Adrian―the son of a boycotting fieldworker who works closely with Cesar Chavez―in a catastrophic situation, Jack must bail his friend out of his dilemma before it ruins his future prospects. Jack uses his wits, his acumen at card playing, and his boldness to raise the money to spring his friend, who has been transformed by his jail experience.

The Road to Delano is the path Jack, Ella, and Adrian must take to find their strength, their duty, their destiny.

About the Author

John DeSimone is a published writer, novelist, and teacher. He’s been an adjunct professor and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. His recent co-authored books include Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan (Little A Publishers), and Courage to Say No by Dr. Raana Mahmood, about her struggles against sexual exploitation as a female physician in Karachi. His published novel Leonardo’s Chair published in 2005.

In 2012, he won a prestigious Norman Mailer Fellowship to complete his most recent historical novel, Road to Delano. His novels Leonardo’s Chair and No Ordinary Man have received critical recognition.

He works with select clients to write stories of inspiration and determination and with those who have a vital message to bring to the marketplace of ideas in well-written books. https://www.johndesimone.com/

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