King of Soul

King of Soul is an historical novel about a young man, Donnie Evans, as he is growing up in the American South of the1950's and 1960's. Donnie's childhood is set in Jackson, Mississippi; the teen years unfold in Louisiana. His sophomore year at LSU in 1969-70 reveals the heart and soul of this coming-of-age story. Donnie's young life reflects an early awareness of the civil rights movement as it existed in Jackson "on the other side of town." Events described in the narrative depict how those liberating changes ultimately prepared the way for the anti-war movement. Donnie's coming-of-age provides a literary lens through which the reader encounters America as it was changing during the 1960's. Donnie's personal experience becomes a backdrop through which that tumultuous period of time almost becomes, as a presence, the main character in the story. Donnie meets a lovely girl from Savannah and some good things happen between them. But the times are changing; Donnie's job as a shoe salesman becomes difficult to maintain; classes and studies slip into the background; his focus fades under the influence of experimental experience; life responsibilities are not so easily kept up when there's a lot of change going down out there in the great somewhere of 1960's USA. One unanticipated thing leads to another when, in the spring of 1970, Donnie impetuously embarks upon a northward odyssey with his friend Kevin. And so Donnie finds himself unexpectedly in Kent, Ohio, in circumstances where his idealism encounters--along with millions of his baby-booming fellow-travelers--a dreadfully fatal reality check.