Timothy Harada

Myth Shattering Timothy Harada

A semi-autobiographical novel about a punk rock teenager in Wutherington Beach, Southern California. With his punk rock friends, he steals marijuana plants from his neighbor's backyards, smokes them in the group's underground club house, and shop lifts for munchies on a daily basis. However, on one summer afternoon, while trying to hide a large bag of marijuana in his family's apartment's garage, he discovers his dead father's revolutionary book collection. The things he reads in these books open his eyes wide to the nefarious history of the US government and the nefarious nature of their foreign and domestic policy. This awakening causes him to search for other like books, which further awaken him to the need for revolutionary change in his county. However, the more he learns, the more bewildered he becomes, and the more withdrawn he becomes from school and social life, until he is on the brink of total despair. What finally saves him are the books in his father's collection about Buddhism.