Burning Issues

Smoke causes accidents.

In 1988 William Wharton lost his daughter, son-in-law and grandchild in a multi-car truck pile up accident caused by field burning that obsured visibility. His loved ones were incinerated in the flames of their car. EVER AFTER is the true story of this event and the indifference that Mr. Wharton met when he tried to affect change in the lack of laws to stop this smoke pollution. Below are the Jacket notes for the book.

August 3, 1988, heavy black smoke engulfed an Oregon highway, causing a massive 23 car pile-up that claimed the lives of novelist William Wharton's thirtysix year-old daughter, Kate, her husband, Burt, and their two infant daughters. Victims of field burning, a routine agricultural practice that continues to this day, they were incinerated alive in their van.

How could this be allowed to happen? And how can one ever come to terms with such a loss? In EVER AFTER William Wharton searches for the answers to these questions. This, his first work of nonfiction, is a gripping account of a father's grief and relentless pursuit of justice. Writing with the inspired simplicity that has won him great acclaim, he evokes the voices and thoughts of his loved ones--the living and the dead--to reconstruct and reckon with the events that changed his life forever.

In EVER AFTER William Wharton searches for the answers to these questions. This, his first work of nonfiction, is a gripping account of a father's grief and relentless pursuit of justice. Writing with the inspired simplicity that has won him great acclaim, he evokes the voices and thoughts of his loved ones--the living and the dead--to reconstruct and reckon with the events that changed his life forever.Kate comes to us through her own voice, as she grows into womanhood, falls in love, and raises her babies. And then, Wharton speaks for himself of the tragedy and anguish of those who are left behind. His pain is unbearable until three days after their deaths, Kate, Burt, and their daughters visit him in a dream. As though in a passage to the afterlife, Burt tells him to fight field burning, so the horror will never happen again. Wharton is compelled by this vision to take on the system. And before he is through, he and his family will have been through a different kind- of hell: the investigations, the lawyers, the judges, the insurance claims, the media, the compromises, and the deals. And they will have drawn on resources they never knew they had. EVE R AFTE R is a story of individual courage and collective cowardice; of one man's rage against death, and spiritual renewal.

W1LLIAM WHARTON is the author of eight novels, including Birdy, Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo, and Last Lovers. Birdy won the American Book Award for best first novel, became a national bestseller, and was made into an award-winning film. A native of Philadelphia, Wharton received a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA in 1960. In the mid 1960's he moved to France to make his living as a painter, and there raised his two daughters and two sons with his wife, Rosemary.

lACKET DESlGN BY WHlTNEY G. COOKMAN JACKET PHOTOGRAPH OF WlLLlAM WHARTON AND GRANDDAUGHTER DAYIEL. COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

W1LLIAM WHARTON is the author of eight novels, including Birdy, Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo, and Last Lovers. Birdy won the American Book Award for best first novel, became a national bestseller, and was made into an award-winning film. A native of Philadelphia, Wharton received a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA in 1960. In the mid 1960's he moved to France to make his living as a painter, and there raised his two daughters and two sons with his wife, Rosemary.


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