In August 1965, a car bomb detonated outside a Bronx diner. As debris rained down, hundreds of snapshots fluttered through the smoke. One photo captured the truth of the moment: graffiti scrawled on a tenement wall—
America v America
Outcome Uncertain
That is the world of Burn Everything…Then Forget It. At its center: Viola Dash and Billy Castle — a girl born into privilege and a boy marked forever by the subway killing of his mother. Their love story becomes the pulse of a nation on the edge, in a year when idealism collided with the misguided pursuers of power and political control. Corruption was more than just social hearsay, it was a disease. Treachery hid behind polite façades, and duplicity arrived packaged as patriotism.
Viola and Billy each carry a secret inheritance: fathers whose shared, covert careers served the darkest ambitions of the nation. And now it is their children who stand in the way — Viola for what she knows, Billy for what he refuses to forget.
Burn Everything…Then Forget It seeks to reframe America’s legacy of racism, covert violence, and social manipulation — and to give voice to a generation raised on hope, only to be warned by history itself: Beware of justice.
‘Librarians and readers seeking a novel charged with the politics, culture, revolutionary changes, and life-altering moments within different strata of American society will find Burn Everything … Then Forget It especially suitable for book club and reading group discourses about the future of a nation and those whose pasts and ideals affect its progression.’
– Midwest Book Review
‘This book will appeal to those readers interested in recent American history, as many scenes of the protests and descriptions of the locality may be familiar, especially to New Yorkers.’
– Readers Favorite