When a dying mother hears the voice of her son thirty years after his death in Vietnam, she recalls the promise he made in 1968 as he boarded a military plane headed overseas: that one day again she would hear his voice. But it is not until she learns about the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., that she is able to decipher Jesse's mysterious message. Alicia realizes she must journey to the wall to touch her son's name and honor his memory, and like a spark kindling a new flame, her decision inspires her warring children to join her.
Let Their Spirits Dance is the story of a family's journey across America toward reconciliation and hope. Seen through the eyes of Alicia's newly divorced schoolteacher daughter, Teresa, the story uncovers Teresa's own belief, as revealed to her by Don Florencio, ancient seer and mystic, that Jesse would one day return in a new form. Among others joining Alicia and Teresa on the trip are Jesse's ex-addict brother Paul, his flamboyant sister Priscilla, and his whiz-kid nephew Michael, whose talk of parallel universes suspends reality, connecting the living with the dead.
The cross-country trip gathers old friends of Jesse's, garners the good wishes of strangers and elicits media coverage from coast to coast. With questions about Jesse's death that were never fully explained by the military, along with a mysterious plaguing phone call received from Vietnam two years after he died, the family comes to realize that the Wall is the magnet luring them on: the answers are there.
Stella Pope Duartes stunning debut novel portrays a family struggling with the universal scars suffered by all who have been touched by death through war. With this novel, Pope Duarte connects family, friends, and an entire nation with the names on the Wall, honoring the men and women who served in Vietnam as well as those left behind who watched and waited, but never forgot.
A family disfigured by the Vietnam War makes a healing cross-country pilgrimage from South Phoenix to Washington, D.C., to touch that city's famous memorial to the dead soldiers of that war. A first novel.
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