Book Description

Seeds of Fortune is the sympathetic study of a lonely, frustrated man who, as a boy, inherits his father s unfulfilled dreams. Harry Gresser yearns for success, wealth and respect. His strength lies in his ambition, his relentless will power and his consuming desire to be loved. His vulnerabilities stem from his bigotry, his blindly self-oriented nature and his genetic bent towards alcoholism. The conflicts running through the story center around whether or not Harry will succumb to these vulnerabilities or will ultimately find the love and happiness he so ardently craves. The book is divided into three parts involving twenty-six chapters, which are preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue. It is written in third person, past tense. In the Prologue, a raving man staggers down a stairway to the lower foyer of his luxurious home and then to his study. Moments later, he falls to his knees as a Samurai sword and Harry s belly become one. A smile softens Harry s frozen face as it reveals the mental flash he has just seen of his father the man he had idolized and pledged his life to so very long ago. Part One, Seeds of Many, reveals Harry as a young white boy growing up in a needy, lonely, loveless world in Philadelphia. Harry s grim, hard-bitten mother is sustaining the family by taking in laundry. His benign, loving father is a shiftless, fantasizing alcoholic, who before he dies, passes on his dreams to Harry. During these early years, Harry frowns and struggles while contending with a variety of pressures which nurtures his atheism and spawns his hostile and patronizing attitude towards the women and blacks in his life. Upbeat and determined, eighteen-year-old Harry leaves home to find his way. He becomes an Air Corps fighter pilot in World War II, where, in the jungles of Burma, his world suddenly becomes a nightmare. Fortuitously, an outgrowth of this experience produces George Archer, a man who in later years grows to be Harry s alter ego. After the war, Harry joins a Flying Circus as a civilian stunt pilot. He soon reverts to booze in order to cope with living on the edge. George Archer reenters Harry s life just in time to save him from a drunkard s lot by introducing him to the provocative spell of Monsignor Matthew Thomas. Part 2, Seeds of Money, moves Harry and George into Cleveland, Ohio, where they become co-owners of a run-down stamping plant. Over the next few years, the two men achieve preeminence and wealth as businessmen. As the years pass, however, Harry gradually comes to realize that success has not brought to him the self-contentment he craves even after he somewhat modifies his patronizing attitude toward women and gets married. In vain, he wonders why. But, like so many of his ilk, Harry s self-perpetuating bigotry blinds him whenever he looks in the mirror. A failed marriage and the sudden simultaneous death of George and Harry s young son produce within Harry a sense of lonely desperation and motivate him to abandon his current lifestyle. He experiences prenatural visits with his past, and these encounters, and the quandaries they precipitate, haunt Harry as he uproots himself from Cleveland. Part 3, Seeds of Change, finds Harry on the prowl to find the keys to his own happiness. The reality of his world starts changing absolutely, but so does the way Harry perceives what he is looking at. In Mississippi, Harry impulsively looks up his mother whom he had forsaken years before. Subsequently, it is the death of his mother and the love he finally feels emanating from her that brings together Harry and Melissa June, a tiny black woman with a magical touch and a devout outlook on life. Harry s obsessive intoleranc