The Flag Burner

Summary

This is a love story unlike any you have ever read. Join Mark Caan on his journey to save his soul. After a brush with death, he confesses to an unthinkable crime. A crime that could send him to jail for the rest of his life. His confession takes us back to his freshman year in college. There he meets and falls in love with Byron, a charismatic anti-war protester. Together they form a relationship that challenges the norms of what love means and to what ends it will take them.

The times are chaotic. It is 1968. The Vietnam war dominates the airwaves. The nightly news brings the war’s death and destruction into America’s living rooms with vivid details while the ominous threat of the draft haunts every young man’s psyche. The hippie culture is emerging and confronting the establishment head on. Anti-war protests are taking place on Main streets and college campuses across the country. Old perceptions about love, sex, drugs and war are all being challenged. After decades of struggle, and with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King, the civil rights movement is reaching a combustible crescendo.

As this historic backdrop unfolds, Mark and Byron must navigate their undeniable sexual attraction.

As Mark’s poignant confession gradually unfolds, it reveals a love that is layered with strength, sensuality, regret and forgiveness.

Now, twenty years later, as Mark is confessing to his pastor, all the emotions of a life lived in grief and regret are exposed. His haunting and powerful story aches with longing. A longing for his youthful naivety and absolute commitment to a love that knows no limits.

You will laugh and cry as Mark’s words spill from his heart. And finally, as a witness, you will cheer at his boundless love, and what it can achieve, even in the face of absolute resistance.