Gary Beaumont, irreverent and excitable, is an accomplished and devoted musician. His guitarist partner Colin Hensley, composed, intellectual and equally gifted, is far less sanguine. A fault line runs between Colin's artistic and scientific abilities-every shift disrupts careers, plans, relationships. Skilled and charismatic, he is haunted by a 1971 tour in Vietnam and a long-gone, but near-fatal, heroin addiction. Colin is captivated by defiant, solitary and willfully self-sufficient Jeannette Hughes who comes to listen to a gig the musicians play in her hometown, a rural Canadian village. A few years later, with nothing to lose and Colin now a college professor in physics, they cheerfully intertwine their lives for nearly a decade, finding a rare joy in each other. Then the fault line fractures and the music that brought them together now rips them apart. Jeannette suddenly finds she has everything to lose-that Colin and the indiscriminate loveliness of his and Gary's music have become an inseparable part of her. Six years later, a mutual tragedy forces Colin and Jeannette together once more, only to discover the indelible imprint fractious Gary Beaumont has left on them both, and forcing them to face hard realities about the delights and wreckage of their past decisions. Pilgrim is an incisive and poignant story of the twenty-year journey of three people's intersecting lives. A portrayal of personal triumphs and failures, survival, the bonds that tie relationships, the integrity of friendship, romantic and platonic love-and the various shades in between, the inspiration of intellectual rigor and competence. And the enduring power and light of music.
About the Author: Christina Hattingh writes sharply observed literary fiction filled with vividly painted characters, exploring human interactions, the bonds and breakages, the motivations that guide action and inaction, and the resilience and frailty of human nature. Her stories draw upon living experiences in South Africa, the U.S., the U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Christina has co-authored several non-fiction Cisco Press books on networking technologies including QoS, VoIP and SIP trunking. With a degree in Computer Science, she spent many years in the communications industry, as a software designer, manager, architect, and network designer, with specific focus on contact centers, networking protocols and the methods and challenges of multi-media communications. She is also an active musician and teacher, plays several instruments, and performs in amateur and volunteer music groups. Christina currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California.