© 2013 Axios Institute. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy | Contact Information
As Always, Jack
A World War Two Love Story
By Emma Sweeney
Hardcover: $17.00 $15.30 (10% discount!) •Free Shipping •ISBN: 978-1-60419-048-9
As Always, Jack is available from leading booksellers everywhere, or from Axios Press:
“A gem of a book, or an ache of a book really, every bit as amusing as it is moving.”
—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra: A Life
“This book is an intensely personal gift, one that cannot fail to tug the heartstrings, threaten tears, and leave the reader awash with a renewed sense of gratefulness for the sacrifices of the military and their families through the ages in the name of honor, duty, and patriotism. This book is an incredible gift, one I'll not soon forget.”
—Booktalk & More
“As Always, Jack is a deeply moving tale of a passionate courtship and marriage, told through the letters of a young naval officer who would have gone on to make his name as a writer had he lived. The introductory essay by the couple’s daughter is as inspiring as it is perceptive. This is a book that will break your heart and restore your faith in the power of love.”
—Ellen Feldman, author of Next to Love
“From a hidden cache of letters Emma Sweeney has wrought an exquisite book—wise and funny and sad, and almost too moving to bear.”
—Simon Winchester, author of the New York Times bestseller The Professor and the Madman
Summary
In the days just after the end of World War Two, a young Texas Navy pilot named Jack Sweeney falls crazy in love with a California girl just before he is shipped off to the Pacific with his squadron. He woos her with letters and makes away with her heart. He returns safely; he marries her.
Over thirty years later, a young woman returns to her childhood home in California for her mother’s funeral. Before leaving the house for the last time, without knowing what she’s looking for, she opens a dresser drawer in her mother’s room. Towards the very back of the drawer she discovers a packet of old letters tied up with a pink ribbon. In these letters she meets the man she has forever longed to know and love, the man her mother rarely spoke of during all the years of her childhood. In these letters she meets her father, Jack Sweeney, for the first time.
As Always, Jack is in part the bittersweet story of a daughter’s search for her father, an account of her struggle to unlock the mystery of his disappearance on the eve of her birth. Preserved in this story, however, is another, more universal one: the sweet and classic tale of true love in a time of war.
About the Author
Emma Sweeney is a literary agent who writes frequently about gardening. A member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives and the Women’s Media Group, she divides her time between New York City and upstate New York.