Local author Ron Hughart has written a new book, Déjà Vu of a Skeptic. The book is a departure from The Place Beyond the Dust Bowl, his book about the plight of his migrant family who fled the Dust Bowl to make their way to a new life in California.
Déjà Vu of a Skeptic is a semi-biographical novel inspired by an event that happened to him more than 25 years ago that left him baffled. While sitting in a small restaurant in Placerville, California, Hughart, a former police officer, became overwhelmed with the feeling that he’d been there before and knew more about the people and surroundings than he should. He found the sensation “scary, humbling, overwhelming, confusing and baffling.”
“I am a true skeptic about these kinds of stories and have been all my life,” he explained. “I think down deep I wanted to be wrong about what was happening to me.”
Since its release in 2002, The Place Beyond the Dust Bowl has won numerous awards in the U.S. and Europe. In 2005, Hughart released Beyond the Dust Bowl with a Pocket Full of Peanuts, continuing his saga of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in the San Joaquin Valley.
Hughart and his wife, Ann, live in Exeter. He enjoys talking about his experiences and has given lectures to organizations, schools, colleges and universities. He has also acted in movies, including “The Visitation” (2005) and “The Moment After II -The Awakening.”
Hughart’s book is available as paperback or eBook. For more information, visit ronhughart.com.