The First Mile - Softcover

Volkmer, Kent

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1505683858 ISBN 13: 9781505683851

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Evie Solo is a young university student, resettling in the United States after a nomadic life with her father, a Foreign Service officer discharged under circumstances Evie has never understood.

Lost in a world with a father who’s changed in deeply troubling ways, she seeks answers in an introductory philosophy class, where she encounters a question she sees as a pointless game, but is unable to dismiss: What would she pay to know her future?

Trying to focus on more realistic concerns, Evie takes on a special study of human poverty and inequality, though the question about predicting her future nags her, and she can't fathom why. As she works to grasp what she is up against, she attracts an unlikely group of confederates, irresistibly drawn to Evie and to the questions that begin to consume her. She soon finds her efforts intersecting with those of her professor, himself grappling with the implications of a mysterious outside venture.

Unexpectedly, Evie's study also sparks a new connection with her father, whose interest in salvaging his own life and sanity begins to re-awaken as Evie confronts him with questions he had long abandoned.

The First Mile is about mysteries most of us have encountered, including mysteries of human relationships. Join a bright, determined young woman as she embarks on a road that many before her have attempted in pursuit of answers. Like many, Evie finds her journey marked by confusion and loneliness. But she also finds herself rewarded with glimpses into realms accessible only to open minds and hearts. And though she discovers no guarantee of answers, she begins to see clues to the secret of hope along the way.

About this title

About the Author

The author, haunted since his small-town, Midwest childhood by mysteries of time and human consciousness, has tried to both explore and escape his torment through lifelong personal and professional tinkering with questions of human and planetary evolution, and—in more reckless moments—cosmology.

After pathways traversing farms, coal mines, mountaintops, the ocean floor, university and government research centers, and archeological sites on three continents, he finally accepted that time—his—would come to a close more quickly than his questions.

In writing The First Mile, he decided to look to imaginary (but very real) others to take up the task—hoping that in asking their questions, they might point the way toward clearer answers to his own. In following their story, he decided to trust that he would know the signposts when he saw them.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1505683858
• ISBN 13: 9781505683851
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 396