The Cab Driver’s Secret

This is the untold story of Bill Marland, the youngest governor in West Virginia history, age 34, and his aspirations to run for a US Senate seat in 1958-59. The threat of his possible election victory stirs his opposition to employing illegal tactics to discredit him. As Marland’s Democratic primary unfolds, John, age 11, returns from summer vacation with relatives to find his world shattered by those tactics. Expecting the normalcy of family, friends, and home life, he instead finds himself in a dizzying state when his dad is missing, his family’s assets are being auctioned off, he is moving from his forever home, school, and friends, and the “why is this happening?” remains shrouded in mystery. This begins his quest to get answers and cope with decades of fallout from the cannibalistic political forces that exiled his family from the wholesome, majestic hills of WV to a spray-painted gang turf in Chicago. As he copes with multiple challenges, including bodily harm, the transfiguration of his values, and mere survival, John escapes his unwanted fate through an unrealized talent, basketball. His is an extraordinary story of how unusual grit, fortitude, synchronicity, and the people in his life combine to lift him full circle from his fallen, post-politics world toward the life he once knew. His return finds that his experiences in the harsh and combative inner city of Chicago have transformed his earlier bourgeois bubble into a well-rounded person able to navigate any socioeconomic world with empathy and gratitude.