A Novelist Looks at Enduring Love

LOS ANGELES - Dec. 1, 2017 - PRLog -- Retired Marine Colonel and award-winning novelist, Ernest Frankel, 94, a widower after 68 years of marriage, knows more than a little about the subject of enduring love and what it takes to pull off a successful long-term relationship despite the many events and circumstances that may test it along the way. His recent novel, Gateway to Everywhere (Hither Lane Press), is a 660-page historical "page-turner" that blends fiction and history, and is, he says, "a love story as big as California."

Gateway to Everywhere begins in China in 1900 on the eve of the Boxer Rebellion, then takes the reader on a heart-pounding escape from Peking and across the pirate-infested high seas to Palm Springs, California, an area still reeling from an ongoing drought. At the heart of this dazzling story is a marriage―two Americans who met and wed in Peking—the beautiful, charming Shannon, a mere 17, and her unwavering Marine husband, Clay, 24, who together try to make a life for themselves in the parched and inhospitable environment of Palm Springs. As in most marriages, Shannon and Clay face tests ― temptations, disappointments, adversity, and heartbreaks. "They are not perfect; they have their flaws, but in time it's all transcended. They both grow. They both learn about one another," says Frankel. "The most important element in marriage is the strength of character it takes to face deprivation and hardship, and triumph over it the end."

Frankel is the author of two previous books, Band of Brothers (Macmillan), and Tongue of Fire: The Story of an American Demagogue (Dial Press; Hither Lane Press. A member of the Writers' Guild and the Directors' Guild, he has worked with CBS, ABC, NBC, independent production companies and the major studios, serving as creator, writer, executive story consultant, line producer, and executive producer on both series and movies-for-television. Enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps  in  1944, Frankel led a rifle platoon of the First Marine Division in Okinawa, the last and bloodiest battle of the War in the Pacific. After the War, he was ordered to North China and stationed in Tentsin, with his duties taking him to Peking and Taku—three of the locales revisited in Gateway to Everywhere. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War and again during the war in Vietnam on special assignment. He was awarded the Legion of Merit by President Gerald Ford.

Gateway to Everywhere by Ernest Frankel. ISBN: 9780692755266; Hither Lane Press, Available: Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Kindle.

Ernest Frankel can be reached through his daughter, Elin Schwartz, at elinschwartz1@mac.com.

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