Author: George E. Furnival

Publisher:

Published: 2000-03-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780738817156

In the beginning of Michael Row Your Boat Ashore Mickey Durrence has been a fugitive from justice for twenty years after a botched bomb explosion killed several people. He had met and fallen in love with a woman with whom he had been living for two years under the alias of Michael McGinnis, when he believes he has been recognized. He tells Jeannie of his previous life and why he must run again; however, they both confess their love for each other which makes it impossible for him to go. She persuades him to contact two of his radical student leader friends, Bart Jamison, now a wealthy business man and Congressman Tom Cosgrove, to see if they would be willing to help him if he turns himself in. He contacts Grace, another from the movement and Barts wife, who promises to help if she can, but she fails to convince her husband, who is in some trouble with federal regulators over some of his questionable business practices, to use his influence. However Tom promises to help. When Greta, his wife another of the group and the political brain behind his success, learns of it she conspires with Bart to stop him by betraying Mickey. They also start an affair, one of many for both of them. When Mickey is surrounded by the FBI, he becomes enraged, charges out of the house brandishing a poker and is killed. The story is a sensation in all the national media. The last member of the group, Hank Stackpole, who had been the comic in the group and the one to everyone had turned for counsel, is a psychologist in Central Florida and a widower with two children. He learns of the tragedy and is deeply troubled. Mickeys companion, Jeannie contacts him and asks him to come to Maine for the funeral. He goes and is very impressed with Jeannie and offers to help her any way he can. Grace and Bart have a huge fight over Mickeys death, even though she knows nothing of his betrayal. Bart heads for Washington, but he is waylaid by a drinking bout in a motel on the way. In the meantime Tom is called up to his son Morgans school in Connecticut to learn that the boy is heavily involved with drugs. The headmaster helps get him into a drug abuse rehabilitation facility in Virginia near Washington. Bart gets to DC and meets Greta in a motel, where they make love and she agrees to help him with his legal problems by sharing with him information about some of the influential people in the government. They both mock their respective spouses for their constantly hankering for those wonderful days in the movement. Grace has become despondent over Mickeys death and her failure to help. This aggravates an already disturbing depression. She is living in luxury because of Bart, and she feels guilty because she never followed through on her desire to utilize her social work degree and help poor people. In her despair she contacts their old friend Hank for help. He is delighted, because he had once been in love with his roommates girlfriend, and they arrange for her to come to Florida to see him. At about the same time Jeannie learns that the authoritys finding Michael was not accidental, because they had found out about Toms way of contacting them through a personals ad in the New York Times, which read Michael Row Your Boat Ashore. She reasons that it must have been Tom who betrayed him. She calls Hank with her suspicions, and he gets her to promise not to do anything until he had a chance to deal with the situation, because he doesnt believe that Tom would betray his old friend. Hank calls Tom, who says that he had wanted to contact Hank to talk. They arrange for Tom to come to Florida to see Hank. It is to be at the same time as Grace is coming. In the meantime, since Grace is going to be out of town, Bart arranges to meet with Greta at their home in Georgetown. Morgan ru