A story of America. Donovan Scali is the illicit child of a married woman and a married man--who are not married to each other. The woman dies in childbirth, and the distraught husband kills the childs father.
After spending the first five years of his life in a convent, Donovan is five years old when he is taken to the South Philadelphia Home for Lost Boys, in the Devils Pocket section of Philadelphia. When the orphanage burns down one night, the people of the Devils Pocket each take one of the children to their home to care for them until the State can make other arrangements. In the OConnor home, for the first time Donovan has found a family. They are boisterous and rowdy, and he loves the Devils Pocket and all the people in their neighborhood: but a tragic event takes Donovan away from this idyll.
He survives the fifties and joins the army. He is in Germany when JFK stands at the Berlin Wall and says, Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner) to the long-suffering people in Berlin. Six months later, Donovan is sent to Vietnam where he witnesses a whole village wiped out. Coming home, he attends Florida state Universitys graduate program in Creative Writing: he is scapegoated when radicals blow up a building and is sent to prison. His girlfriend takes care of his adopted Vietnamese child. When he is released, he is a hero on campus.
A Friend of the Family is a story that takes the reader through WW II, the election and murder of JFK, the Berlin wall, Vietnam and the world of student protests and radical groups. It is a story of the heart of America, and of the tragic events that change it and the people that are caught up in its history.
About the Author
Mark Randolph Conte has published fiction, poetry, articles, interviews and Guest Columns in 67 publications including Yankee, Crazy Horse, Potomac Review, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Daily News, Tallahassee Democrat, New York Arts Journal, Northwest Florida Daily News, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry International, Poet, Devils Millhopper, Apalachee Quarterly, Snake Nation, Poem, and others. He was Director of the Florida State University Poet Series where he hosted Allen Ginsberg, James Dickey, Maxine Kumin, Amiri Baraka and others. He was appointed Master Poet for the Poet in the Schools program by the Florida Arts Council and Assistant Director of the Center for Participant Education. He has given reading and lectures at the United Nations, University of Pennsylvania, University of Florida, Florida State University and other schools and colleges. He has nine books, Midnight Dreams, anthology editor, 1979, Walking on Water, poetry, 1986, Delilah and Other Stories, 2001, In The Arms of Strangers, 2003, The Judas Scroll, poetry, 2004 and Five Days to Eternity, 2005. Of Flesh and Stone, 2009, The Ghost 2013 and The Easter Lamb 2015, The Hunt for the Ghost, 2016, Kathys Songs, poetry, 2016.. The Winds of Will, due May 2017 and A Friend of the Family due December 2017 He had short stories in the anthologies Steps in Time, Consuming Tales and Love Matters. He won Honorable Mention in the PEN American award in short fiction in 1979 and first prize in poetry in the Barbwire Theater awards. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets and the Authors Guild. In photography, Mark Conte took fourth place in the Tampa Audubon Society, honorable mention in Philadelphias Fairmont Photo Contest and has three photographs in the Balch Institute museum in Philadelphia. As an entrepreneur Mark Conte started and operated Philadelphia Airport Shuttle and Econoline Limousine in 1987-91 and in 1992 started and published Beat magazine, a music Magazine, in 1992 - 94.
