Alone on the Shield: A Novel

Kirk Landers

nov 2017 · Chicago Review Press

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Former lovers driven apart by the Vietnam War reunite decades later in the Canadian wilderness: “Absorbing from beginning to end . . . a page-turner.” —Booklist

Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention

I hope you get drafted and you go to Vietnam and you get shot and you die there! Those words, spoken in the anger of youth, marked the end of the torrid 1960s college romance of Annette DuBose and Gabe Pender. She would marry a fellow antiwar activist and end up emigrating to Canada. He would fight in Vietnam and come home to build an American Dream of a life.

Forty years later, they have reconnected and discovered a shared passion: solo canoeing in Ontario’s raw Quetico wilderness. They decide to meet again to catch up on old times, not in a café but on Annette’s favorite island deep in the Quetico wilds. Though they try to control their expectations for the rendezvous, they both approach the island with a growing realization of the emotional void in their lives, and wonder how different everything might have been if they’d stayed together. They must overcome challenges just to reach the island. Then they encounter the greatest challenge of all—each other.

“A compelling mixture of adventure and romance . . . a tightly focused novel that deftly speaks to growing older and the struggle for understanding.” —ForeWord Magazine

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Kirk Landers launched his professional writing career in the US Army, later entering the special-interest and trade magazine worlds. His magazines won more than 100 awards for journalistic excellence, and he is a member of the Construction Writers Hall of Fame. He lives in the suburbs of Chicago