Pillar of Fire

By Bill Foley

GOD'S CHOSEN NATIONPillar of Fire is an exhilarating journey through the 1920s led by two unlikely lovers: the Reverend Ida Woodbury, a fundamentalist minister and Dwight Harris a damaged WWI veteran and journalist. Their lives intersect amidst the nation's raging xenophobia and the breakdown of Victorian standards. The Ku Klux Klan had ballooned in membership, especially in the North where its anti-immigrant agenda and support for Prohibition won thousands of adherents.Dwight is an emotionally wounded veteran who embraces the jazz age while struggling to find meaning in his life. Ida Woodbury's faith offers a catechism on how to live until the God she believes in abandons her one fateful night. Together they journey through the dark side of the American dream: a white America that will do anything to deny Jews, Catholics, and different races the most basic human rights. In the silk mills of Paterson and Passaic they will witness the exploitation of men, women and children by owners who regard workers as little more than replaceable cogs in their factories.Written as a historical novel, our couple will encounter many of the pre-eminent figures of the time: Al Smith, presidential candidate, Hiram Evans, Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan and Bishop Alma White, prominent nativist and founder of the Pillar of Fire Church. The struggle to separate church and state and to be a nation of immigrants fought so bitterly in the twenties remains an elusive goal even in the present day.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692344438
• ISBN13: 9780692344439
• Release Date: May 2016
• Publisher: Bill Foley
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"