When there were far fewer people around, far fewer laws and regulations, when the legal speed limit was 75 mph, when gas was cheap, when driving was a pleasure, if you owned a hot machine you could point the grill down an empty road and go!

One Summer

"One Summer" is a semi-autobiographical novel that evokes the sights, sounds and smells of small-town Lents through the eyes of an adolescent boy growing up on the edge of 1940's Portland, Oregon.

Drawing from personal experience, as well as historical events of Portland, Drake weaves the story of a teen reaching adulthood in the summer of 1948 that is simultaneously nostalgic and honest. Chris and his friends read Real Clue and Detective Comics at the Mt Scott drugstore, hang out at the movies at a time when John Garfield was starring in "They Made Me A Criminal," and listen to "I Love A Mystery" on the radio.

Meanwhile, hints of the adult world intrude on Chris' idyll: the responsibility of a paper route, involvement in petty crimes with his friend Mal, and a plane crash on 92nd Street.

"One Summer" taps the feeling of being young, looking for adventure, and finding it in the most surprising places.  This book is part of the Lents Collection of fiction by Albert Drake.

One Summer
122 pages, 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches, perfect-bound (July, 2011)
Stone Press; ISBN: 0-936892-24-2; $8.95
Also available as an e-book on Amazon.