When Aaron Wade meets Savannah Green while volunteering for the OFA campaign, love blossoms amid voter registration drives, local campaign rallies, primaries, and the election's unforgettable storylines and milestones. When a surprise visit in midsummer derails their seamless romance, love, friendship and patriotism compete for Aaron's loyalty in a tale that takes readers from a lazy summer in the deep American south to the treacherous slums of Baghdad. Set mostly in North Carolina, a battleground state that separated the candidates by two percentage points in 2008, the novel exhibits a small-town southern charm quality along an international plot that travels wide to Europe, the Maghreb and the Middle East. Driven by their political socializations, complicated pasts and current affairs, the characters are multicultural with emotional demons to slay and lean on the promise of the campaign they support to bring closure to their own personal tragedies. Their emotional stories are twined together with the election's epic dynamics of war, foreign policy and revival of America's standing amidst a fragile and disenchanted international political economy.
The novel cheers love, hope and civic participation. Twenty-one Months celebrates America's comeback, and the reinstitution of her democratic vistas post 9/11. The plot humanizes the other side of the conflict and reminds us of the unintended consequences of war. It compels us to look at ourselves with a different lens and ask hard questions. It begs for the consciousness, constructive disruption, and proactive participation of the American people in U.S. foreign policy.
Twenty-one Months is a record of the times. It reminds us of traditional political norms. The novel looks back nostalgically at a momentous page in American history, at a much less divisive time, when America embraced hope and elected in overwhelming fashion the first African American president. His journey and triumph highlighted the best in American politics, captured the attention and interest of the international community and inspired millions of global citizens around the world. Befitting the election season, the novel is a fast and fascinating read for both the political pundit and the politically despondent.
