Shortgrass: A Novel of World War II

Mennonite farm boy Lance Roark’s faith is as big as the challenges he faces on his family’s drought-ravaged Dust Bowl spread on the old Chisholm Trail. He can also run over, around, and away from people on the football field and is a natural born aviator. These abilities lead him to college gridiron glory and bring him into contact with famed aviators Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post, entertainment icons Will Rogers and Bing Crosby, best-selling young author John F. Kennedy, and President Franklin Roosevelt. As war clouds gather across the seas, Lance finds romance first with teenaged cowgirl and stunt flying sensation Pearl Carter, then with beautiful oil heiress Mary Katherine Murchison, whose mesmerizing voice carries her to the heights of Big Band Era stardom. Nearly all of this crashes against his pious, peaceable ways. And it leads him into the dangerous world of America First, the Lindbergh-led organization that opposes the popular Roosevelt’s covert drive toward American involvement in World War II, now ablaze in both Europe and the Pacific. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Lance, with his lifelong commitment never to raise his hand against another human being, faces his ultimate decision—whether to accept command of a B-17 Flying Fortress in which he would face, and inflict, mass slaughter in Nazi-occupied Europe amidst history’s most fearsome war.