Paradise Bay

May 1, 2002
New York Times bestseller James Michael Pratt (Ticket Home) returns with a painfully corny tale about a son in search of a connection to a father he never knew in Paradise Bay. Levi Harper, injured in Vietnam, remained in a coma for 30 years and awoke long enough to launch a successful musical career and revive an affair with the love of his life, Janna. When she fell ill, the stress was too much for Levi and he relapsed. Now his son, Jack Santos, seeks to learn about the man (and himself) through Levi's journals. The unbridled sentimentality, wooden dialogue and hokey plot will be hard for even Pratt's fans to endure.

May 1, 2002
Pratt has a knack for bringing to life stories about love and war, and both are entwined here. Jack Santos always wished he knew his father, but now that Jack knows he is alive, he can't communicate with him. Levi Harper, a "piano man" like his son, suffered a head wound while serving in Vietnam and fell into a coma. Thirty years later he regains consciousness and is amazed to be an old man instead of a young soldier on his last mission before marrying his childhood sweetheart, Jenna, who is not Jack's mother, but Levi only has four years before he goes under again. Fortunately, he leaves Jack the journals he wrote while coping with his traumatic awakening. Soon Jack is immersed in his father's life, beginning with his childhood and moving through his reluctant but heroic service during the Vietnam War, his love for music, and his love for Jenna, a passion that kept him from marrying Jack's mother. Ultimately, Jack learns as much about himself as about his father.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)