The Rocket's Red Glare

In 1982 a high school shooting shook the community of Sabreton, Pennsylvania. A year later signs of the shooting had been swept clean and students seemed to take events in stride. For Gary, an insecure 1983 Sabreton freshman, this only added to his anxiety as he began what promised to be a humiliating year of school. The Rockets Red Glare is a story of the friendships that sustained, inspired and ultimately carried Gary through those turbulent years. He and his friends were, for the most part, middle class kids who were drawn to the New Wave and Punk music popular at that time. For them, drinking, dancing, and loving it all seemed so right but ended so badly.Five years after high school Gary is now on his own. He is an aspiring artist balancing a hatred for his corporate day job with his live-in girlfriends desire for stability. But soon his world will change when he receives a call from an old friend. An impromptu road trip across America, a tape of a long forgotten band and a suicide force him to face the question of whether he has really survived anything.

Kent Messer was born in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois. He grew up in rural Southeastern Pennsylvania where he performed with New Wave and Punk cover bands in the early 1980s, inspiring this book and its lyrics. He is now a doctor in Michigan where he lives with his wife and children.