CROSSING THE SAGAMORE (The Boston Irish Belt Trilogy)

CROSSING THE SAGAMORE (The Boston Irish Belt Trilogy)

High school buddies are reunited when a friend suddenly passes away. After beers and reminiscing, they form a plan to get the body and drive it home from Cleveland to Boston. Sounds crazy, but one last road trip just might be what their friend wanted and what these middle-aged guys need. With 10 songs to a tape and 10 miles to the gallon, they fulfill an old promise and take one last road trip to give him the send-off he always wanted. They get into non-stop trouble as these grownups behave like they're still teenagers, blaring Classic Rock, cruising the highway in a '74 Bonneville, and making hilarious stops at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an outrageous Amish strip joint. Each of them is carrying a lifetime of grievances, passions and secrets that are ready to boil over. Along the way they talk about the problems in their personal lives and mistakes made along the road trip of life, and unravel surprising truths that propelled them all to agree to this crazy adventure. With the police, rabid New York sports fan deer hunters, an ABBA-hating Security Guard and crooked Irish gangsters chasing them, the guys race to make the funeral in Boston so they keep an old promise to a lifelong friend. CROSSING THE SAGAMORE is a heartfelt and hilarious tribute to the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness and music. Crossing the Sagamore is a powerful, voice-driven, working-class American novel rooted in male friendship, memory, guilt, loyalty, and the long shadow of youth. It blends coming-of-age nostalgia with middle-aged reckoning , using music, place (Dorchester, Cape Cod, Cleveland), and ritual (the Love Boat, road trips, bonfires, 8-tracks) as emotional anchors. At its best, the novel feels like: Stand By Me meets The Big Chill - With the grit of early Dennis Lehane - And the warmth and humor of Richard Russo They say the best time machine is a song. There's something special and magical about music, how it evokes a memory and causes emotions to rush over you.  There are people with Alzheimer's and Dementia, people who can't even recognize their wives or husbands or children, but suddenly a song comes on, their face lights up, and they know every word to 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles or 'Beyond the Sea' by Bobby Darin. It's subconscious and sublime and as deep as the ocean.  It's like that with old friends.  When you're together, there's a feeling of joy and comfort that you just don't have with other people.  Time and experience take you away, but when you get back together thick memories brush by like they just happened yesterday. You remember little details, like what you were wearing, how hard you laughed, and the song that was playing. The music. It's always the music. And you have this total, absolute feeling of happiness.  And love.  Real love.  The kind you know deep in your soul.There's just something about the people who knew you growing up. Everything changed in 1981. The disco '70's were officially over. Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as President. MTV aired its first music video 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles. And me and my best friends graduated from high school. There were five of us. Me, Jimmy, Kevin, Steve (aka Beef) and Joe. Jimmy named us 'The Norsemen' because he loved history, especially all that Viking shit, and we were inseparable since fifth grade. We grew up in Dorchester, a working-class town about a stone's throw south of Boston made up of white Irish families defined by Catholic parishes. It was a tough, close-knit neighborhood of triple-decker houses that stood shoulder-to-shoulder, so close you could almost share leftovers through your kitchen window. Mike is the founder of ChathamPoint Group, an executive search firm outside Boston. His 'midlife crisis' writing career began when his children and his money went off to college - checks made out to Loyola University Maryland (x2) and Assumption College respectively. Mike's work has placed in the NICHOLL FELLOWSHIP, BLUECAT, FINAL DRAFT Big Break and PAGE International screenplay competitions. Three of his screenplays were optioned and under development with production companies.    Mike is a graduate of Providence College and Boston College High School. He resides in Medfield, MA with his wife Michele. He spends summers on the beaches of Cape Cod and winters roaming the aisles of Home Depot.    contact:  meb123@comcast.net