The Spindrift Frame

Thomas Aquinas "Tam" Malonee, a talented but troubled portrait artist, is a man on the run-from a failed marriage, a series of petty crimes, and from himself. When he meets a Tennessee waitress named Madison Monroe, he thinks he's just taking on an attractive travel companion. Tam has no way of knowing that he's about to embark on an amazing, life-altering journey that could ultimately lead him to personal redemption.

While stranded in the path of a deadly hurricane headed for St. Bartholomew, Florida, Tam creates a collage of twelve small frames painted on a single canvas. Each frame reveals a very personal experience, such as reuniting with the father who abandoned him and dancing in the spectral light at a rainbow's end. He also paints images of people he's met, including Madison and a Montgomery, Alabama, lawyer whose life is intertwined with Rosa Parks. But how did Tam get to this point-utterly alone and facing one of nature's deadliest forces?

Author Jim Accardi, eloquent in his thoughtful observation, creates an atmosphere that is rich and illustrative. He carefully and cleverly guides us through Tam's circuitous and tangled path as he pursues either his destiny or possibly just the consequences of his own choices.