It's the autumn of 1968 and America is coming apart - the Vietnam war, racial unrest and political upheaval are sending tremors through the country. While thousands of young men are desperately avoiding the draft, Rob Masters has just finished four years of unwanted military service and wants nothing more than to find his place in the rock 'n roll heaven of Los Angeles music clubs and record companies. His grandfather's sudden death forces a return to his family home in southern Colorado. That's where Rob's mother is anxiously waiting for his father to finish a year leading a U.S. fighter squadron over Vietnam. It's also where Rob can revive his treasured old friendships with his 1964 band, whose adventures are chronicled in "The Romeo Boys: A Rock 'N Roll Odyssey," author Peter S. Roper's first novel.But this is 1968. Teen-age love songs have been drowned out by psychedelic music. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy have been murdered. Anti-war and civil-rights protesters battle with police. Rob's old friends have been through their own trials - wounded by war and taunted by discrimination. And Theresa Garcia, the young woman he loved and dreamed of, has changed most of all."Start of the World" is the story of whether Rob can rekindle those friendships and love in a nation staggered by war and social change.
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