A novel in English and Spanish suitable for advanced dual language instruction
THE STRAWBERRY FIELDS WHICH JOAQUIN NOSTALGICALLY recalls from his youth are from the mid-1960s in rural southern Michigan, in places like Decatur. The music he recalls is from Motown. Now, thirty-something years later, he is flying to Chicago, then driving to Decatur for a brief visit and then returning to his law practice. His journey will retrace the very roads he traveled in his youth in an attempt to draw from memory the sights, sounds and scents that were his strawberry fields of the 1960s.
A fun visit or is Joaquin in search of something?
We will join Joaquin on his journey of rediscovery and reinterpretation of events and relationships from his adolescence. These include his imagined epic battles with his immigrant father who regretted ever coming to America and saw his children slipping away into Americana. He also has a strange, blurry image of a blonde.
Before embarking on his trip, a strange jingle — “Grandfather tree, grandfather tree, please show what I can’t see.”— imbeds in his thoughts. Annoying at first, it will become a worrisome obsession. As he nears his eventual destination, Joaquin’s memory of the blonde sharpens. Who was she? What ever happened to her?
