Our Wolves Den would love to welcome you to the Book Tour, Review, & Giveaway Event for Monte Dutton's novel The Intangibles.
It’s 1968. The winds of change are descending on Fairmont and engulfing the small South Carolina town in a tornadic frenzy. The public schools are finally being completely integrated. Mossy Springs High School is closing and its black students are now attending formerly all-white Fairmont High; the town is rife with racial tension. Several black youths have been arrested for tossing firebombs at a handful of stores. White citizens form a private academy for the purpose of keeping their kids out of the integrated school system. The Ku Klux Klan is growing.
Reese Knighton arrives on the scene at precisely the right time. The principal of Fairmont High School, Claude Lowell, becomes superintendent of the school district. Lowell chooses Preston Shipley, currently the football coach, to replace him as principal and hires Knighton to coach the team, thus forcing Knighton to find common ground with Willie Spurgeon, the successful Mossy Springs coach who has been passed over for a job he richly deserves.
At The Intangibles’ center is the Hoskins family, their relationships to those living within the town of Fairmont giving rise to a memorable cast of characters.
This is a story of a high school football team that puts aside its differences, never realizing that, outside its bounds, the world is unraveling. It’s a story about the cultural changes, good and bad, that take place when two societies shift and finally come together.
Ultimately, The Intangibles is a story of triumph achieved at considerable cost.
My reaction to The Intangibles:
Oh my goodness, just jaw dropping and emotional WOW! I am too young to know what it was like back in the time of segregation, but yet I have learned so much about it over the years. The Intangibles is a gripping and seemingly "REAL" account of how things were.
I was drawn in by the accuracy and reality of the situation as a whole. The characters were all instrumental in making this novel come alive. I was full of emotions that I can't even describe- Fear Disgust, Disappoint, Love, and shedding more than a few tears come to mind even when I reflect back to reading it.
This is something that I am going to have each of my older children {young teens} read. While this is historical fiction, The Intangibles captures the essence of what the time was like. I want my children to feel the emotions, to understand {or try too understand} the way things were.
This is a book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone, those that are mature enough to fully understand the excellence in which this novel was written. I do believe that this will be a book that I will always remember!
Monte Dutton lives in Clinton, South Carolina. In high school, he played football for a state championship team, then attended Furman University, Greenville, S.C., graduating in 1980, B.A., cum laude, political science/history.
He spent 20 years (1993-2012)wriing about NASCAR for several publications. He was named Writer of the Year by the Eastern Motorsports Press Association (Frank Blunk Award) in 2003 and Writer of the Year by the National Motorsports Press Association (George Cunningham Award) in 2008.
His NASCAR writing was syndicated by King Feature Syndicate in the form of a weekly page, "NASCAR This Week" for 17 years.
Monte Dutton is also the author of Pride of Clinton, a history of high school football in his hometown, 1986; At Speed, 2000 (Potomac Books); Rebel with a Cause: A Season with NASCAR's Tony Stewart, 2001 (Potomac Books); Jeff Gordon: The Racer, 2001 (Thomas Nelson); Postcards from Pit Road, 2003 (Potomac Books); Haul A** and Turn Left, 2005 (Warner Books), True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed, 2006. (Bison Books); and is an Editor/Contributor of Taking Stock: Life in NASCAR's Fast Lane, 2004 (Potomac Books).
The Audacity of Dope, 2011 (Neverland Publishing) was his first novel, and Neverland recently published his second, The Intangibles. Another, Crazy by Natural Causes, is in the works.
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