Carl Jon Munson – författare

Book Two, Shining as the Sun, continues the journey begun in But Now I See. Pastor Amos Nordquist heads west on the new Northern Pacific railroad line, stopping in the growing boomtown of Billings, MT. There he befriends “Fur Man,” a big drifter familiar with the Sioux Indians as well as the Little Big Horn battlefield. They and three others head down to the battlefield, loosing their way in the snow-covered prairie until surprised and redirected by a party of Christian Sioux in exchange for medical treatment of Sioux children. Amos tells Bible stories to the tribe, learning another name for God, Wakan Tanka (Holy Great), before returning to Billings and heading west. In an extraordinary town blossoming in the boom of the last major gold strike in the lower 48, a cast of characters emerges, including gorgeous, sagacious, and indomitable Molly Burdan, nee Molly B’Dam, drawn to the gold just found near Murray, Idaho. From Murray, Pastor Nordquist travels to Seattle, where he encounters expansive prostitution, graft, and hypocrisy—the reader experiences the tragedy of how Tacoma and Seattle expelled their entire Asian populations. Amos’s terrible temper explodes twice: once with a hypocritical church member cheating on his wife and once with the whole congregation on the Chinese expulsion issue. After lengthy deliberation, Nordquist resigns his pastorate and leaves with his family and belongings moments ahead of the outbreak of the Great Seattle Fire. Over the next several hours, fire will destroy the entire city, including the parsonage.

Pastor Nordquist and his family head north to one of the most beautiful places on earth, the Skagit River Valley, and encounter socialists organizing Equality, a socialist nirvana colony. The experiment quickly develops frustration, acrimony, and labor discord, building to a crisis and ending in another tragic fire. To the south, capitalists conceive the “West Coast New York,” an extensive land and waterfront purchase for commercial and residential development begun by a wealthy circle of friends including John D. Rockefeller, until the Panic of 1893 undermines the entire scheme. Rockefeller gradually takes control and directs his friend and most trusted advisor, Rev. Frederick T. Gates, to unload all assets at a profit, a seemingly impossible request. It’s a fascinating story of the euphoric highs and deadly lows of 19th century capitalism. In the wake of these events, Pastor Nordquist witnesses a major and deadly confrontation between Big Bill Haywood’s Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a small army of other working men led by Sheriff Donald McRae, one of the most indomitable lawmen in the history of America. Finally entering retirement, Pastor Nordquist concludes the trilogy with a Titanic sister ship in a real WWI incident that, like much else in the trilogy, leaves a reader wondering: why didn’t I know this? The joyful ending sees Pastor Nordquist revisiting Sweden very late in life, followed by the short epilogue—an exclamation mark at the end of a life’s emotional journey, a journey in three parts.