Pursuit of Paradise

Tom Smith presents the story of his parents in his first historical fiction, Pursuit of Paradise. The novel vividly describes the years before, during, and after World War II. It begins in Texas and moves to the South Pacific, returning to Texas and moving westward to Arizona. He accurately traces the true events in the lives of Horace Smith and Juliette Hamilton in the short span of time between the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and their marriage in 1946. After extensive archival research of the 21st Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, Smith describes in meticulous detail the harshness of the Pacific War. He includes a day-by-day account of the brutal struggle for Breakneck Ridge on Leyte Island. He places the reader in the middle of the deadly tactics and the insufferable conditions that were among the most excruciating in military history. The reader experiences the Pacific War with Red Smith and his buddies, from the start of training to the end of combat. The reader lives through the occupation of Japan and the long trip back home, only to find an America that had undergone considerable change, with cities and shiftwork replacing the small farms that had dotted the landscapes of the past.