The Crossing by Ashby Jones

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The Crossing is a powerful and haunting love story of surprising discovery set in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen during Prohibition. Its mission seeks to reconcile love and guilt, grief and promise. Set apart from other stories, it combines history, fact, surrealism, and reality into an ever-recycling boost of the human spirit.

Irish-born Johnny Flynn, a former British soldier, is banished from his homeland and sent to America on a ship so riddled with disease that he realizes the voyage was meant to murder him. When he survives the trip, the captain forces him to walk the plank into the Hudson River. Miraculously, Johnny is rescued by a rumrunning Irish gang, the Swamp Angels, and given a job running whisky in Hell’s Kitchen just as Prohibition makes liquor a hugely profitable, dangerous business.

Fighting for his life and livelihood amid the denizens of the Manhattan piers, Johnny is plagued by the memory of his lost lover, Nora, whose father, the famed Irish revolutionary, James Connolly, met his death through a firing squad that included a reluctant gunman named Johnny Flynn. Nora’s last words to him, when she learned of his betrayal and left him, “I love you, Johnny Flynn”, echo in his heart, leaving him pulsing with guilt, yearning, and the hope that she might yet forgive him.

Johnny drinks hard. One night, drunk on the floor of Hailey’s speakeasy, he encounters a seeming apparition on stage, the ghostly Esme, an Irish singer who suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the British Black and Tans. Johnny is dazzled by her. She is not only a singer but a healer, teaching poor and afflicted children to sing and gather hope at an old theater called The Woebegone. From Esme Johnny learns how to overcome the desire for revenge, only to discover that she, too, clings to her own dark dream of retribution.

Hell’s Kitchen, Johnny discovers, is thronged with people whose damaged hearts ache for revenge, repentance and love. As he grapples with taking responsibility to help others resolve this overwhelming dilemma, he learns that Nora is coming to New York to advocate for Irish independence. As he confronts her and soon thereafter receives a piercing love letter from Esme, the story comes to a turbulent climax.

Read an Excerpt

My God, let’s get this sack off you,” one said. “Two stones inside? They threw you off, did they?

“Thank you,” Johnny rasped, barely able to move and unwilling to answer. “God, thank you.”

A man with a scared face leaned closer. “You sound Irish. Well then, God may have had something to do with saving you, mate.” The man pointed to Liberty. “After all, how could something that large have made it across the Pond without His help?”

“Where … where are …” Johnny couldn’t finish.

“We’re headed to Hell’s Kitchen,” the voice answered. “They call it Satan’s playground, though some say God’s been seen there having a drink or two. We’re the Swamp Angels, rum-runners, who keep Him supplied.”

Johnny could not feel his lips move as he attempted to smile. He looked up at the sky, bound for America at last. The boat inherited the flow of the water and so too did he.

He struggled to remove a small cross from his pocket. It was made of the finger bones of the baby twins whose skeletons he’d pried from their mother’s ossified grasp. As if memories were flowing through the bones, they were warm to the touch. Before following Bile’s order to throw the skeletons away, when he was searched before boarding the ship, he’d slipped the tiny bones into his shirt pocket and later knotted them with a bootlace. The tiny fingers clasped each other in the shape of a cross. He’d sworn to keep it with him always, as a reminder that forgiveness for killing another, regardless of the side one was on, stood forever apart from the seeker. And for those who had served on a firing squad, though justifications could be had, not even with love as powerful as he and Nora had shared, could forgiveness be found.

“My name’s Seth, mate, and the young insect by me we call Locust. What’s yours?”

“Johnny,” he whispered.

“And your last name?”

“Johnny,” he replied and closed his eyes. If he had no full name, maybe he would not be pursued in this new world. Maybe he could find a new beginning, a purpose which could not be taken from him, neither by his guilt nor his longing for Nora.

About the Author:

Ashby Jones has been writing historical novels for 50 years. With degrees in Literature and Clinical Psychology; Creative Writing at UCLA under the guidance of Leonardo Bercovici. Jones previously published: The Angel’s Lamp in 2017 which was well received and reviewed by the Irish Times. Jones’s passion is writing literary fiction that attempts to understand mankind’s never-ending battles with irony, tragedy, blatant contradiction, and the anomalies of love. Such is the focus of 'The Crossing', a stand-alone sequel to 'The Angel’s Lamp', his first novel. He studied under such notables as William Hoffman, a best-selling author, and years later at U.C.L.A. under Leonardo Bercovici, a highly regarded screenwriter.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashby_jones
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Ashby-Jones/e/B01N2YR769/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14394032.Ashby_Jones

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592110894/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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