The Diary

A NOVEL INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY, The Diary is set in Walla Walla County in the Northwest when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was attempting to break America free from the grip of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The keeper of the diary is Al, a young man dealing not only with the deprivation inflicted by the Depression, but also with tuberculosis. Through his daily entries over seventeen months of hospitalization, you will come to know his wife, family, a cast of fellow patients who are both humorous and heart-breaking... and the secrets Al thought he had buried so deep inside that not even he would remember them. The story blends day-to-day life in a tuberculosis sanatorium with local and world affairs that include the threat of war as news from Germany, Japan and Italy floated across oceans to the men in Ward One. The Diary presents a slice of America in simpler times when the bond of family and friends was often paramount in surviving the hardships of the times. It is a tale of love, loss and triumph.