White Boy Highway

When Frank Benjamin, a Jewish teenager from New York, agrees to drive his black maid, Esther, to North Carolina to visit her sick sister in the summer of 1967, he has no idea he is about to set out on the ride of his life. What is supposed to be a quick and easy drive to and from Eden, North Carolina, soon turns into an odyssey, during which Frank is chased down by a gang of bikers, unknowingly befriends the Grand Wizard of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, rescues Esther from a cult, and finds himself in a number of unexpected situations. Along the way, Frank and Esther make both friends and enemies, all the while discovering a thing or two about race relations in 1960s America.

R. Stephen Lemler, PhD, poet, playwright, illustrator and author, uses his storytelling skills to write books whose messages of social justice speak to both young and old alike. Within the illustrated pages of his children's book, Bruce The Chartreuse Moose, one can plainly hear Dr. Lemler's call for racial tolerance amongst green and yellow moose who, by the way, do a fine job of substituting for humans. Turn the pages of his fantasy/sci fi novel, The Elocutionist's Tale, and you'll find similar themes woven throughout. Both White Boy Highway, drawn from life experiences gleaned during our country's tumultuous summer of 1967, and Like Birds' Feet In Snow, from years working with and for Native Americans, encourage the reader to approach each story as one would a babushka doll, peeling back layers to reveal the deeper prize within.