A Cool Mist Rising: Reflections on the War of 1812

From a psychiatric hospital, Peter Stonehouse, late of Sandhomen University, grapples with his family history as he edits a collection of manuscripts written during the last stages of the War of 1812. As he does so, he untangles his own experiences in Vietnam and those of his son in Iraq. Many characters both in history and in Peter's immediate experience retreat from life and from themselves. However, bands of roving pigs and well hidden hordes of unconventional treasure as well as simple patience lead them to a new insight. Throughout all of these endeavors, one maxim resonates, "We have eyed our enemy in the face and found ourselves."

B. Patrick Conley, chief archivist of the non-existent, fully unaccredited Sandhomen University shares the core values of his beloved aetherial alma mater: unrecognized, unpretentious, unprestigious. If you look for the "un" in university, you'll find Sandhomen. The motto of Sandhomen "Per Insana ad Astra" reflects the plot machinations of the stranger than fiction opus, "A Cool Mist Rising: Reflections on the War of 1812 ." As chief archivist, Professor Conley has preserved the work of Peter Stonehouse with the caveat, "The problem is you can never quite know when he's telling the truth."