Don’t Think Twice

Author: Alison Lohans
New Edition: Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, 2009

ISBN 978-1-894431-35-4

Original Publisher: Thistledown Press, 1997

1967: Shy 17-year-old Jan Carlson lives in Sierra Vista, California, a conservative farming town. The Vietnam war rages. Friends’ brothers get drafted and the daily pledge of allegiance becomes a test of conscience.

1997: Thirty years later she’s living in Canada. Worried sick about her runaway daughter, Jan writes a long letter in a desperate attempt to reach out to her. She describes falling in love with brothers Tim and Rob, a tumultuous time when irrevocable choices are made.

Read a review in CM Magazine, and also from SaskBooks: http://reviews.skbooks.com/?p=763.

Shortlisted for the CLA Young Adult Book Award, 1998
Shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award, 1997

Starred “Our Choice” Canadian Children’s Book Centre selection, 1998
Resource Links “Best of 1998” selection

Price: $14.95
Purchase from:

Laird Books
Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing
SaskBooks, Don’t Think Twice
Book & Brier Patch, http://www.bookbrier.ca/

or directly from Alison

Also available as an ebook for Kindle (US) and Kindle (Canada) and as a Kobo at the Kobo store.

Don’t Think Twice was Alison’s first serious, intensive writing work. She began writing the book in May 1967 within a month of graduating from high school. This was partially in protest against the Vietnam War. Raised a pacifist, Alison felt thwarted in that as a young woman, her beliefs didn’t count for anything. She didn’t have to make the terrifying choices faced by her male classmates: to go overseas to kill others and possibly be killed; or to refuse to go and be thrown in jail; or to register for Conscientious Objector status; or to flee to Canada.

Alison worked on this coming of age novel for a number of years, getting distinct nibbles of interest from publishers in New York and Boston in the late 1970s and early 80s. However, writing skills are built upon a foundation of many years of hard work. Feeling stuck, Alison went on to write, and publish other books. Don’t Think Twice was published as her eighth book, thirty years after she first began working on it.

In this novel Alison Lohans weds her growing-up years in small-town Central California, with life as an adult and parent in Saskatchewan. Pacifism is explored in multiple facets. And always, there are underpinnings of music: the high school band world; rock and folk songs of the late 1960s; and much more.