Jerome Mark Antil is the seventh child of a seventh son - of a seventh son. Born at sunrise it's been told by Mary Holman Antil and Michael C. Antil Sr., that he was the first of eight siblings to stay awake all day and sleep through the night from the moment he was born. I remember the Pearl Harbor attack announced on our Zenith radio before I could walk. I heard Edward R. Murrow reporting the War from London...and the scratchy battle-weary ship-to-shore Morse code messages on radio while my diaper was being changed. Heartfelt fare of family and friendship - light-hearted nostalgia from the 1940s and 1950s are his favorite subjects. He revels at capturing in good detail what it was like being a kid living in a world at War and its long shadows. When the War ended, he grew up in Delphi Falls, which provided the setting for The Pompey Hollow Book Club and The Book of Charlie. My dad was a baker from the 1929 Great Depression through the post-War 1950s. As a young boy, I'd ride with him all throughout central and northern New York visiting grocers and U.S. Army bases; baseball parks and bread lines as he sold his bread, hot dog buns, pies and cakes. My Dad was 'Big Mike' and I loved listening to his timeless stories and tall tales - stopping at fishing holes along the way. All day rides with Big Mike - his Buick my Steamboat - his grand stories and an entire world at War my Mississippi. As an adult Jerry worked as a proof reader and printer's liaison, he later wrote and produced industrial sales and training films. An accomplished writer for public relations and advertising agencies, he would become Chief Marketing Officer for several prominent U.S. companies. Jerry's favorite authors are: (John Steinbeck) Steinbeck could peer through a peephole of a person's soul. (Ernest Hemingway) Papa Hemingway could establish character in a single sentence. (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) His Sherlock would keep me as eager for the next clue and accompanying anecdote as for the crime's solution. (Mark Twain) Samuel Langhorne Clements was an irreverent observer of human foibles. His stand up was thought provoking, deceptively caustic - he was the Howard Stern of the 19th century.
KIRKUS REVIEW A group of kids in rural upstate New York have a series of adventures in the years following World War II. Young Jerry Antil has always been a city boy, so when he and his family-including his mother, his baker father Big Mike and his brothers Mike and Dick-move from the town of Cortland, N.Y., to the country in 1948, he knew he'd have to make some adjustments. Luckily Jerry, like others who grew up during World War II, is a resourceful kid who knows how to make the best of any situation. And thanks to his father, Jerry knows that if you pay attention there's plenty of adventure to be had no matter where you are. He and a group of likeminded kids form the Pompey Hollow Book Club, and before long they are finding excitement everywhere, whether they're looking for a group of thieves who have been breaking into local businesses or trying to save a gaggle of innocent poultry from a grisly end on the Thanksgiving table. Although structured as a series of discrete stories, the flow of the narrative feels more like a novel than a collection of short stories. The characters are well developed-especially the kids-and the prose is plain but competent. The humor is more goofy than witty, but it will be a hard-hearted reader who won't chuckle at least once. The novel occasionally comes across as a little saccharine, but it feels honest and heartfelt all the same. The most affecting passages describe Jerry's relationship with his extraordinary father, who instills in him a strong sense of decency, as well as a love for adventure. The author makes a compelling point by stressing the idea that growing up in wartime had a profound effect on the outlook and attitudes of the children, among other things allowing them to make the most of any situation. A heartfelt story about growing up in the shadow of World War II. "Reads like a NORMAN ROCKWELL painting" Ron Masak "I don't cry easily, but I wept three times...laughed more!" Pastor Dan Griffin "The stories are set in a place I have never been, and a time in history I didn't live. Yet the narrative of this book is such that I have found myself in that place and time. Definitely a classic!" Maria P. "This really, for me is the epitome of a book to read on a lazy vacation day." Laura Seeber "The greatest generation meets Mark Twain." Stuart Horwitz
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