New to the gift shop is “Lost in the 50’s” (paperback-$19.95) – a book written by Bill Tracy, an author from west central Illinois with family ties in Monmouth, IL. The following synopsis from the back of his book reads as follows: “The fifties were the golden years. They were the birth of rock and roll and televisions in most homes, featuring new shows and array of sports for family viewing. It was the decade of a million baby boomers crowding the yards and parks of America and the unbeatable New York Yankees and their hero Mickey Mantle. War hero Dwight Eisenhower was president, and with Richard Nixon by his side, ruled over a period of unprecedented growth. But for Joey Henderson, a terrifying incident at his uncle and aunt's farm turned the fifties into a black age brightened only by the love of a young girl.
Forty years later, with the death of his beloved aunt, his story comes flooding back, and Henderson, a part-time author, knows he has a great novel. He sits at the computer and it spurts from his fingers with no thought of story, character or scene. After three days of tears, anger, gut-wrenching terror, passion and frantic typing, his novel is almost finished, but first he and his cousins must bury Aunt Nora.
As Henderson and his wife travel the two lane roads of Illinois to the funeral, he previews the novel for her. There is a problem with tell-all books and before they are even ten minutes on the road, she is already at full alert as they both retreat into the past and a history that she, and sometimes he, were not fully aware of.”