Racing with the rain : a novel

Racing With The Rain: a phenomenon witnessed in the tropics. A fast moving rain cloud in an otherwise clear sky triggers a sudden downpour and people run helter-skelter for cover. Is it possible to outrun the rain? Can one ever really escape the past and avoid the inevitable?It is 1980. Guyanese born and Canadian naturalized Carl Dias' life is unraveling. He is separated from his wife Natasha and two children. and now, comes news that his father, Augusto has died in Guyana.Conflict seems to have marked Carl's early life. Back in colonial British Guiana, he was an active member of a youth movement of reform, the left-wing ruling party. This inevitably led to a clash with Augusto, a successful businessman and member of the business elite, a man with political ambitions in the Conservative party. Augusto has come from a long line of Portuguese entrepreneurs and is fiercely opposed to independence for the country under Reform. adding to the conflict between father and son, Carl had taken a scholarship to Cuba under the auspices of the Reform party, a move that resulted in a rift that was never mended between father and son.Carl makes contact to find out who of his siblings will return with him for their father's funeral. His oldest brother Joseph, now living in the UK, is dead set against it. brother Thomas, now living in Florida, is unable to go due to his medical condition. Both of his older siblings were affected by the racial turbulence back in the sixties and still bear scars that never healed. None of the brothers knows the whereabouts of john, the youngest of the dias siblings. It seems as if Carl is going to be the sole representative at his father's funeral. It's been sixteen years since carl left the country and his return will reignite memories of a period in which the political and social fabric of the colony collapsed into conflict and instability. This happened as the two main political parties Reform and Republican vied for power and the right to lead the country to independence, polarizing their supporters into racial divisions. In the background, was the Kennedy administration applying pressure on the British government to engineer reform out of office, and the CIA infiltrating the country's labour movement to create a climate of fear and uncertainty.On his return to Guyana, Carl is interrogated at the airport by the Special Branch arm of the Republican Government. They're looking for people who are connected to the RDG, a right-wing North American based group of expat Guyanese aiming to free their homeland from the President who, aidedby a history of fraudulent elections, has been in power since independence in 1966. Top members of the RDG, attempting to acquire arms for their uprising, were caught and arrested in a joint RCMP/FBI operation. Carl fails to disclose that his name is actually on the membership list of the RDG. One of the members of Special Branch is Winslow, Carl's childhood friend who has connections to the dreaded X-13 group that ran a terror campaign against the then Reform government. It is with all of this hanging over his head that Carl is allowed to attend his father's funeral.Will Carl's past catch up with him? Will Special Branch discover his links to the group planning the revolution? Will he be detained by the administration? These and other issues will determine whether Carl is allowed to leave the country and be reconciled with his family... Racing With The Rain: A fast moving rain cloud in an otherwise clear sky triggers a sudden downpour and people run for cover. Is it possible to outrun the rain? Can one ever really escape the past? Guyanese born and Canadian naturalized Carl Dias will find out as he returns for his fathers funeral. His visit will bring him in conflict with a government that is facing threats from an expat group intent on overthrowing the dictatorship. It will also evoke the events of the Kennedy Administration/ British Government manipulation of the internal politics of the former colony, an era where the CIA promoted an attempted coup, causing riots and the virtual destruction of the commercial district of Georgetown, the Capital. It was also a period where the Dias family imploded due to divided loyalties, resulting in scars that never healed. Characters caught between deeply conflicting loyalties are driven by the politics of the dank, tropical atmosphere of a British Caribbean colony, half a century ago, only to find themselves trapped in a drama whose tragic effects still haunt them and their fellow Guyanese. Frank Birbalsingh author of Novels and The Nation: Essays in Canadian Literature. "Kenneth Puddicombe's RACING WITH THE RAIN is a gritty look at the politics of a nation and within a family that drive a young man from his home and from his country. Gripping and hard-hitting, this is a novel you won't want to miss." -KAREN FENECH author of Gone