REDEMPTION ISLAND, a novel

Synopsis

The Iraq war leaves Justin Caden, twenty-three, disenchanted and flawed. March 2006, out of the military and on American soil, he yearns to forget combat, and decide on a future. In nightmares and news reports, he relives the carnage. At home, he finds life unfulfilling. He questions the motive that had placed him on the battlefield and wonders if this is the price for preserving home values.

Having had an opposite view to the Iraq invasion with his grandpa, Joseph Guillaume, now deceased, torments Justin. His grandma, Madeline, gives him Joseph’s laptop on which he discovers a memoir, titled Beyond Acadia. Throughout the book, Justin reads about his grandparents growing up in Chebec, a small fishing village on the southwest coast of Nova Scotia, long ago called Acadia. The manuscript inspires him to visit Chebec.

He seeks answers for his mother’s demise when he was thirteen and does not trust his stepfather. At her grave, like a confession, he talks to her. “Mom, I’ve been to war. I’ve killed. I know you would not approve.”

He visits his biological father who is mentally handicapped and in State care. Justin is not sure if his dad recognizes him.

He meets Kim Atoka and develops a strong affection for the African-Native American woman. She introduces him to her eccentric aunt, a fortuneteller, who reads his future and tells him that he’ll walk on the ground of his ancestors and hear a distant voice.

He attends the funeral of an amputee comrade who committed suicide after his wife divorced him and had told him she wanted a whole man. Justin meets the mother, a compassionate woman who tells him that he will find his way.

Driving northeast, destination Nova Scotia, a drifter poet, a Korean War veteran with a prosthetic leg, hitches a ride, and together they attend an open-mic session at Eclectica, a place where people express their views. The poet delivers strong political and social opinions. Justin hears honest, touching, and sad human situations. He fears that he could become like some of them.

Farther on the highway, he picks up an enigmatic little man, a storyteller. Justin hears stories that are patches on the American fabric.

He assists in a triage following a tornado that devastated a children’s home. The pillage reminds him of a battle aftermath. His participation ignites a feeling that preserving life instead of eliminating it nourishes dignity.

Before reaching the ferry that will take him across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia, he rescues a teenage girl from would-be abductors. He takes the troubled child to her grandmother and he knows that the young woman is safe. He feels that he has liberated a human from a downward spiral to destruction.

Justin had heard of Redemption Island. The mysterious landmass looms off Chebec’s shore, and at certain tide level, exposes an entry. Folklore says inside there are forces that can rid the occupant of demons. But there is danger. Not all who go in Redemption Island come out. Some have returned deranged, mad, a few took their own lives.

He meets Stacy Stanley who challenges his feelings for Kim, back home.

Justin strikes a conversation with Osprey, a one-eye, one-arm Korean War veteran, and a Redemption Island survivor. In metaphors and innuendos, Justin listens and his urge to enter Redemption Island intensifies.

His grandma informs him that a close high school friend, Joey, overdosed. Justin recalls their conversation before he left. “Why am I cursed as I am? Look at you, Justin, healthy, well-dressed, disciplined, and on your way.” “Joey, the war scarred me. I’ve many questions and I don’t know my way ahead.”

To compile his grandpa’s manuscript in a book format for publication, Justin spends time on Escape Island that resides in the shelter and shadow, across a channel from Redemption Island. On Escape Island, he finds human bones and a manuscript written by a dead merchant marine captain. Justin wonders if the manuscript depicts the captain’s travels around the world or what he might have seen inside Redemption Island.

In Beyond Acadia, his grandpa says that Redemption Island had beckoned him and he had entered. Like his grandpa, Justin experiences the magnetism and goes in.

Inside, the supernatural stone monolith launches Justin on a chaotic surreal journey. Escorted by enigmatic dwellers, Justin treads tunnels. He sees a shattered city. In a wasteland, an usher takes him on a tour by a graveyard. Other times, his brain flashes kaleidoscope images. He strolls along a dead river, drifts among people who have lost their will, like zombies. In metaphors, he witnesses corruption brewing. He views the reoccurrence of a famous event. Before he exits, at the core of the rock, he comes upon a lush pristine valley where he sees his grandpa across a river. In telepathy, Justin hears him. His grandpa points toward the mountains and an immaculate sky, and tells Justin that over the ridge there is a wonderful world that awaits him.