Philip U. Effiong

Monty Philip U. Effiong 1st edition

Monty is the byproduct of war, not the actual occurrence, but the usually silent yet brutal aftermath that haunts freely as it achieves untold mental damage. The initial setting is a picturesque refugee camp where life oscillates between the grim, the gothic, and the vicious. It is located in the fictional nation of Beuvera, whose attempts at seceding from Cape Toria, a fictional nation too, results in a Civil War. A dreadful consequence of the War, the camp is the birthplace of the central character, Monty, who is born to a faceless father and refugee mother that dies minutes after he is born. Left to the mercy of pervasive devastation and death, the near-dead infant is rescued by a reverend sister who, herself, is shot and dies soon after delivering him to a secret escape airstrip. Thus rescued and miraculously kept alive by Father Brendan who also names him Monty, the child begins a phenomenal social and physical journey that covers two continents. He is first sent to Ireland, but the United States is soon considered to be more suited to his mental and emotional needs. At nine he is sent there to live either with surrogate families or in special educational facilities. Marked as a refugee and ward of the Catholic Church for a great part of his life, Monty confronts painful challenges that stretch the human capacity for survival and endurance. Lacking the basic knowledge of who his parents are or who he really is, and having to endure the mental and physical deficiencies that result from his gory birth, Monty's growing-up is plagued by extremely self-conscious episodes that constantly test the limits of his patience and level of determination. In spite of his shortcomings and emotive battles, he is not yet a teenager when his uncanny ability with a flute is discovered. For the rest of his life the flute will become his most trusted companion, a source of revitalized self-worth, a source of inspiration, and a pathway to recognition and lost hope. After completing t