The Road to Delano

Product Description

“An original and deftly crafted novel that showcases the author’s … impressive flair for originality and … narrative story telling style that keeps the reader’s total attention from cover to cover…” Midwest Book Review 

A high school senior, Jack Duncan dreams of playing college baseball and leaving the political turmoil of the agricultural town Delano behind. Ever since his father, a grape grower, died ten years earlier, he’s suspected that his mother has been hiding the truth from him about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

With his family’s property on the verge of a tax sale, Jack drives an old combine into town to sell it. On the road, an old friend of his father shows up with evidence that Jack’s father was murdered. Armed with this new information, Jack embarks on a mission to discover the entire truth, not just about his father but the corruption endemic in the Central Valley.

When Jack’s girlfriend warns him not to do anything to jeopardize their post graduation plans and refuses to help him, Jack turns to his best friend, Adrian, the son of a boycotting fieldworker who works closely with Cesar Chavez. The boys’ dangerous plan to rescue the Duncan family farm leaves Adrian in a catastrophic situation, and Jack must step up to the plate and rescue his family and his friend before he can make his escape from Delano.

The Road to Delano is the path Jack and Adrian must take to find their strength, their duty, their destiny.

Review

Foreword 2020 INDIES Finalist 
Maxy Award 2021 Finalist 
Independent Press Awards 2021 Distinguised Favorite 

Five Stars. “As exciting as the book’s sports and gambling scenes are, the novel’s staying power comes through its depictions of the strikes themselves. César Chavez is among its cast–a brilliant, imposing, and principled figure who urges strikers and pickers not to meet violence with violence. His calm, even in the midst of a weeks-long fast, gives Jack and Adrian the boosts they need to persist through perilous challenges.
Devastating and triumphant, 
The Road to Delano is a meticulous historical novel that honors the bravery and sacrifices of those who stand up to injustice, even at great peril to their own well being.”

Foreword-Clarion Review–Michelle Anne Schingler

“Chavez’s fire and commitment had staggering repercussions,and John DeSimone’s newest offering,
The Road To Delano(Rare Bird Books), brings it all back — more personally and powerfully than a chapter in anyclassroom history book…”
BookTrib

“The Road to Delano
​
is a historical narrative that will stand the test of time. Its messages of nonviolence being stronger than violence remind us of the great need to choose the higher moral ground,especially during harrowing times of unrest. DeSimone’s novel tells a classic story of the strength of friendship and how the choices we make every day pave life’spath.”   Book Review Directory

“An original and deftly crafted novel that showcases the author’s … impressive flair for originality and … narrative storytelling style that keeps the reader’s total attention from cover to cover…” Midwest Book Review 

“This engaging novel demonstrates the power of historical fiction to re-evaluate the meaning of past events, by placing them in imagined contexts that help clarify their importance to the present…” 
Indie Reader

“It will likely introduce many readers to an unexplored chapter of American history; it even features famed labor leader Cesar Chavez as a character..