On the Road

This book is the third part of "Escape." Part I describes Mark and Pete's life in the Olympic Team in communist Czechoslovakia and their attempted escape to Austria. Upon "Becoming Rich" (in Part II), Mark finally leaves Italy and travels across the Continent, through France to Belgium and Germany. He struggles hard to acquire new documents and employment, but his dreams are stronger than any social codes that surround him, and he cannot be contained by borders of any state...This is the story of true and false love, entrapment and escape, victory and loss, personal growth through trial and error, disappointment and reacquired hope. It is set in the tumultuous autumn of 1989, the year, which started as dark as any in the previous decade, but ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Mark is a teenage hero trying to acquire identity and free himself from the burden of the past. Behind him, there is but deluge of mire of the past; before him lies the proverbial Open Road, with the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle of Freedom hovering on the distant horizon - and Mark is willing and wanting to go all the way! He may turn back with a reproachful eye asking whether he should not have been taught the cruel lessons life has in store for us beforehand - but realizes that the value of life is only in its being lived, and that no-one else is to blame if anything goes wrong...