The Tarnished Horseman Comes Home: Out of War, Comes Love

The Tarnished Horseman is not a linear story in the traditional sense. It is a sea of voices, a kaleidoscope of images, opinions, and observations about one man, George Arnold, and his time. The voices come from tumultuous periods of the twentieth century, and each has a unique perspective, its own story to tell, yet the voices all center on George Arnold. He is a man out of one time, searching for his place in another.George was a good son, the perfect student, the brilliant promise of so many peoples' dreams. George, the idealist, leaves the university to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Through various accidents of fate, he becomes an active combatant in World War II. Caught in France without a valid passport, he enlists in the French Foreign Legion, escapes from the Maginot Line to England, where he joins the RCAF. Shot down over Germany, he fights much of the war with a Siberian Cossack unit and a sub-machine gun . . . but on horseback.Released from the Soviet Union in 1948, a bad year to return to America from a communist country, George cannot find work. He turns to using the only skills he knows, first with the Israelis, later with the French in Viet Nam and Algeria, and finally with various mercenary groups in Africa. He drifts from one 20th century conflict to another. The reader sees him through the overlapping voices of those around him; and also through his own voice, as he leaves an oral history for the one woman with whom he finds love. The reader must use these voices as keys to understanding the brilliant, idealistic young man who left the American dream in order to help his fellow men, but who finishes his career as a mercenary, kicking gold teeth out of dead men's mouths. George is not only the last horseman of the world before world wars; his journey signifies the end of America's idealistic foreign engagement. Out of this study of war, emerges an unexpected, but passionate romance. A young woman manning a machine gun in the Israeli war for independence comes to see George as more than a hero. She seeks him across time and space, coming to see him as a man, but one she comes to love. Their passion infuses the book with humanity.This story, however, is not just one of tragic flaws of character. It is not even solely a study of the character himself, but a revealing look at man during our modern time. George lives in the numbing twentieth century era of wars. The novel questions what causes him to become what he becomes, and perhaps what has happened to mankind in general, in the technological, global society of today.

• | Author: B. B. Riefner
• | Publisher: Independently published
• | Publication Date: Apr 20, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 537 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1095276271
• | ISBN-13: 9781095276273