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Told in astonishing prose, Not into Night is the long-awaited third novel of the series If Where You’re Going Isn’t Home, the story of a boy growing up Mormon in America in pursuit of a dream to play jazz trumpet.
At nineteen, Shake Tauffler is no stranger to conflict. A father who lets him know he’d rather have anyone else for a son. A disturbed mother who can switch from sweetness to rage in a heartbeat. In the summer of 1963, as the civil rights movement inflames America, he leaves Utah, his unprotected younger siblings, and his life as a gifted jazz trumpet player behind to spend two and a half years trying to convert Austria to the Mormon faith. A mission is his last obligation - and his last chance to prove himself - to his zealous father. At the same time, his interest in the fight for civil rights is deep and visceral. Back home, the girl he loves is black, as are his heroes, the dark-skinned men from whom he’s learned everything he knows about playing jazz. In Austria he tries to satisfy his father’s expectation to harvest its people for the church. But he’s irresistibly drawn to the brutal and courageous struggle in the South. He tracks its events in foreign news articles, questioning whether his true allegiance lies there, with a people his faith wants him to believe are cursed and undeserving.
The racism of his faith has long taught Shake to keep a bright line between jazz and religion. But in Austria, once his musical gift is discovered, he’s recruited by the mission leaders to use it to lure people to the church. He resists but finally obeys, playing trumpet in the jazz clubs of Vienna, aware that he’s betraying his black heroes in putting the music they invented to an underhanded purpose.
The volatile mix of jazz and religion, sparked by a violent and predatory mission companion, ignites an in an explosive night with devastating consequences that end the life he knows, and make him a fugitive from the punishing hand of religious law. More than half his mission - now a dark road he travels with a terrible secret - still lies ahead. His only refuge is an Austrian family whose daughter, an only child, is as eager for a big brother as Shake is for the shelter of her family’s love.
