Gibson, KS

Any shorts or snippets pertaining to my 1960s story concept set in a small farming town in Kansas called Gibson.

This story is a continuation following the events of The Damned.

The story follows Mordechai Toltzer, the son of Palestinian and German refugees living in New York. Having felt out of place and unsure of his own identity for years, Mordechai has been on the move throughout the US, trying to work on his novel ideas and find a place to settle, when he lands a job with the a local newspaper in a tiny farming community in middle of nowhere Kansas. Trouble begins shortly after he arrives when an African-American resident in the town is arrested for crimes involving monetary fraud and his twin daughters and their business come under fire in the wake of the scandal. After having their icecream parlor burned and ransacked, whispers stir up that point the blame at "Kraut Town," a subset of the community consisting of German farmers, mostly former POWs who stayed in the US to work after the war, and one man in particular, former SD officer, Chalmar Stromann, who came to the town along with Florian Brandt to aid in translation and communication for the former POWs.
Mordechai suspects that Herr Stromann, as suspect as he is, is just being used as an easy scapegoat and that the criminals are "closer to home" than the townsfolk want to admit, Klan sympathizers embedded in their leadership and waiting for the right opportunity to target the minorities in town. Mordechai teams up with Stromann, Brandt, and April Howzer (one of the twins) to begin digging into the town's history and secrets to unearth the true culprits.

Main themes in the story follow Mordechai's self-discovery, Chalmar's 20-year-late redemption arc following the events of The Damned, fighting the hard fight, and the capacity of people to change.