This is the continuing story of Jack and Diane.  Two American kids who like so many others of the late 20th century had lost their way.  People, like true Love, will survive.  People may suffer but Love will endure and sometimes when all seems lost, Love comes knocking at your door.a good-looking kid, a smart kid, a talented guitar player and a promising Golden Gloves boxer.  He was good.  He was from money and an upper station. He went to a fine university.  He was bred for success but doomed to failure.  He had it all.  Yes, he had it all but then like

 

    Jack (the Saint) St. Clair was that kid who had tons of potential. He was so many others who came up in the 50’s and 60’s, he lost it all.

 

   Jack and Diane met in the fall of 1969 at a Tom Rush concert at the Boston University Student Union, where they were both freshmen.   A very drunk and a very stoned Jack St. Clair literarily fell into Diane Dante’s lap when he quipped, “Is this seat taken?”  Thus began a Love affair that would last the rest of both their lives.

 

   The couple moved in and lived together for the next three years; falling deeper and deeper in Love.  They made plans for the future.  Jack was going to play music. Diane would make partner at some big law firm, before she was thirty.  Man plans, God laughs and all that.

 

     It was in his junior year of college when Jack made the biggest mistake of his young life. He had taken part in a mangled and a botched political bank robbery.  The year was 1973.  The Vietnam War was raging and many students had taken to the streets in protest.  Jack had been one of those students.  He had marched on Washington, sung at anti-war rallies and spoke at peace demonstrations.  The problems arouse when three of a radical fringe duped Jack into driving a getaway car while they were inside a bank attempting an armed robbery.  The naive St. Clair believed the BU-3, as they later became known, when they said they were doing a radio interview.  He also believed that the unseen bomb and automatic rifles tucked away in a duffel bag were just recording equipment.  It was one of those mistakes that can determine a man’s path for the rest of his life.  Unfortunately, the two would-be bank robbers who marched into the 1st Commonwealth Savings and Loan of New England’s Allston Branch never came out.   Prison Pete Simons and Angel (Wings) Wang were blasted into a million little pieces all over the walls of the saving and loan institution.  Angle Wings Wang accidentally set off the detonator of his homemade bomb.  The two desperadoes were the only fatalities, however two of the bank’s customers were severely injured.  One would never walk again; the other would die before thirty of cirrhosis of his liver.  As a result, Jack and Dory Goldman made the FBI’s most wanted list and for the next eight years, Jack became a most-wanted man.

 

   After the bungled bank job, Jack and Dory (Dimples) Goldman made their way to a safe house in Warren Vermont.  The working farm was overseen by a power-mad, charismatic (is there any other kind) leader by the name of Dean Cassidy, born Orrin Sicklehouse.  While in Vermont, much to Dory’s chagrin, Jack took up with an unstable woman named Cate Stony, born Catherine Walker.  Cate arrested during the subsequent FBI raid, later had a son whom in deference to her pseudonym, Cate Stony nee Walker named her Love child Stone William Walker.  Stone Will was yet another child Jack St. Clair would not know until many years later.  Cate killed herself shortly after getting out of a two-year hitch in prison.  His dysfunctional grandparents, from Albany New York raised Stone Will Walker as their own child, which of course could not have been good.

 

    Following the FBI’s raid on the compound, the two fugitives made their way to Nantucket Island.  While there, Jack crewed, worked as a handyman, fisherman and volunteer ambulance driver.  After two years on the island, Dory faked her own death by fire, only to show up years later attempting a hostile takeover of Jack’s thriving clothing company.  Orrin Sicklehouse and Dory Goldman had joined up, married and spent most of their waking hours plotting the ruin of the life of a man they were convinced had ruined theirs.  The pair perished in the collapse of the North Tower of the World Trade Towers as it crumbled in front of a very shocked world.  Jack who had been in the building, walked down the thirty-nine flights to safety.   He would never be the same again.

 

    Immediately after arriving at his hotel room, Jack began drinking again.  He had been sober for many years.  He owned a flourishing clothing company called Saint Hoods, which after the collapse of the Towers, was tied up in the courts, after the new previously undisclosed investors perished in 9/11.

 

   Jack’s daughter had been in their hotel room at the New York Plaza watching the horror from her windows and TV set.  Julie Red Rose (Rosie) St. Clair was Jack’s child from his earlier marriage to Playboy Playmate Maggie (the Cat) Corday.  Jack had raised the bright young girl all through her high school years.   The two were as close as peas and carrots.  Shortly after experiencing the horrors of 9/11, due to his incessant drinking and drug use, Jack lost his house, cars, business, the Love and respect of his family and friends and child.  He wound up at the Midnight Rescue Mission; drunk, addicted to heroin, broke, homeless and hopeless.

 

     Diane Dante, the Love of Jack’s life, on the other hand, had left Boston soon after the bank job with Jack’s unborn child in her tummy.  Mother and daughter, a precocious baby girl named Emma, moved to Paris where the child thrived under the watchful eye of frustrated suitor and ersatz husband Dr. Marco Falerne. Diane worked as Dr. Falerne’s assistant, midwife and office manager.  Her accrued medical training would serve her well later in her life.

 

    Diane Dante, now living as Beth du Barry did indeed moved to Paris and raised her child.  She thought it best to escape the glare and limelight of reporters who has hounded her relentlessly after her live-in lover had escaped.  In Jack, Diane had found the man she wanted to marry but it was not meant to be; not for another thirty-two years.  Emma grew up believing her father was killed during the fall of Saigon in 1975.  When Emma was ready to attend college, mother and daughter moved to Boston.  Emma went on to medical school at Boston University; her mother’s (and still unknown father’s) alma mater.

 

   While Jack was on the run and the whole time Diane was in Paris, unbeknownst to the other, the couple wrote long letters to one another but had been unable to receive each other’s letters.  Therefore, they mailed their correspondence to a mutual friend who saved these letters, later entering them into his computer.  Diane had asked Darryl Lorenzo, Jack’s best friend and Golden Gloves cornerman, not to tell Jack where she was living or that he had a daughter. And for all those years, neither knew of the other’s whereabouts or existence or that each very significant other, in spite of everything, still pined and hoped for what once was but now would seemingly never be.  Delo as Darryl was called, was an openly gay man as well as a literary editor living in San Francisco with his transgender wife Leigh Darling Lerner or as she was now known Dela.

 

   Jack’s yet undiscovered daughter, Emma du Barry did graduate from medical school and went to work at a free clinic in Boston.  Unable or perhaps unwilling to Love again, Diane joined a church; a well-meaning organization called Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow where she tended to the sick, old and downtrodden.

 

    Jack has become a leading AIDS activist attending many benefits.  At one of the functions, he becomes friendly with Elizabeth Taylor and Berry Berenson Perkins, wife of actor Anthony Perkins who had contracted the AIDS virus.  Chet gets sicker and sicker, eventually dying in Jack’s arms.  His old friend leaves him with advice that Jack will need later in life.  Jack takes Chet’s remains out on The Serenity Prayer, a beautiful 38’ sailboat left to him by Joel Simmons.  Jack knows Chet will always be with him in spirit.  Chet later appears to Jack in a dream, which helps Jack in his time of crisis.

 

    Unbeknownst to him, Jack’s lost love Diane has had their baby in Paris, France.  Emma du Barry is a bright young girl, and Diane raises her alone, with the help of her employer Dr. Marco Falerne.  Dr. Falerne is in love with Madame du Barry but her heart will always belong to Jack.  As Emma grows, Diane writes letters to Jack describing their child, but she is not able to send them.  Like her stepfather, Dr. Falerne, Emma goes into medicine.  Aided financially by Dr. Falerne, the young girl attends Boston University, becoming a doctor of medicine   Mother and daughter have moved to Boston where Emma goes to work at one of the Free Clinics in a poor Boston neighborhood. Now back in the States and alone, Diane turns to her Catholic religion and charity work.

 

     With Emma gone Diane becomes severely depressed eventually returning to her old religion for solace.   Diane still sends her letters to Delo, who reads them and logs them into his computer.  Jack has also been mailing his journals to Delo’s unknown lake house.  Delo now has both sets of letters.

 

   Jack and Rosie, now eight, go to Maui where Jack meets a beautiful shaman.  Aided by her magic potion, Mama Joy takes Jack on a spiritual journey.  Through the holy woman, Jack meets a centuries old Siberian spirit called Tee-Neng.  This Spirit guide channels Jack’s deceased mother who gives him advice and hope. Rosie has a dream of her own where she learns the meaning of her Native American name; Two Hawks.  Jack, his Spirit guide and Rosie share in one of Jack’s most heartfelt songs.  Later, still on Maui while on one of their Saving the Day missions, Jack and Rosie witness two authentic Christmas miracles.  A group of lost sailors is miraculously saved and Jack and Rosie are firsthand witnesses to this Christmas Miracle. Jack and Rosie return from the island energized and revitalized.

 

   Several years pass and Jack has gone the way of so many other lost idealists.  He has begun taking anti depressants and sedatives.  Reluctantly he realizes that these are not the answers to life’s questions.  It is six years after his previous trip to Maui.  He goes back with his daughter Rose.  While on the island Rosie is put into grave danger and is trapped in the same cave where Jack had contacted his deceased mother.  Jack’s mother comes to him once again, this time in a dream.  She takes him to a self-revealing multi-tiered tower where she reveals Jack’s true purpose in life and she tells him where he can find his Rosie.

 

    Jack and Rose return once again from Maui and Rosie comes to live wither father.  Jack is now the sole custodial parent.  He puts Rose into a private Catholic school, devoting his new single, sober life to her.  Rose excels at school and it is a happy and productive time for the two St. Clair’s.

 

    In Sept 2001, Jack and Rosie go to NYC.  Jack is prepared to take an offer for the controlling interest in Bluesmen Enterprises.  The meeting is set for 8:30 am, at One World Trade Center, in the North Tower.  The weekend before the meeting, Jack and Rosie explore the city.  Jack has an epiphany at the base of the Statue of Liberty.   Emma Lazarus’s words at the base of the statue prompt Jack to change his life’s goals, yet again.  He makes a solemn vow to himself but this is not meant to be, not at that time.  Later the two vacationers see a Broadway show and spend time at the John Lennon memorial in Strawberry Fields in Central Park. The pair then flies to Boston, where Jack has a bitter and painful reunion with two of his sisters.

 

    On the morning of the 9/11 attacks, Jack and Rosie are taking an early morning flight out of Logan Airport in Boston.  Jack must get to New York for his big business deal.  While in the airport, Jack runs into several of his TJ Maxx buyers who are on their way to LA to open a new store.  He also sees his old friend Berry Berenson, the actress, AIDS activist and widow of Anthony Perkins.  Berry is also on Flight 11 with the TJ Maxx buyers.  Jack promises them all they will get together in LA, not knowing that Flight 11 is scheduled to slam into the same building where Jack’s morning meeting is set to take place.

 

    Jack is in the WTC, going public with his small but profitable clothing company when the first jet hits it. The final offer for his company comes as almost as big a shock as Flight 11, when it slams into the side of the building.

 

    Jack had been offered a great deal of money for controlling interest in his Bluesmen Enterprises. But at what price and from whom?  Jack walks down the 39 flights safety but will be forever changed.  After witnessing firsthand the horror and destruction as well as seeing many of the two hundred plus jumpers who leapt to their deaths, as soon as he gets back to his hotel room, Jack pours his first drink in some time.  Bluesmen Inc is tied up in the courts for years, once the not meant to be controlling partners die when their building is hit during 9/11.

 

   Unable to handle the horrors he witnessed, Jack relapses and begins a three-year downward spiral.  Rosie is about to graduate high school and will soon to be off to Stanford University.  Jack suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  He starts drinking and using heroin again ultimately ending up on Skid Row and in two very different Los Angeles Missions.  The reader gets an intimate glimpse into life inside these two big city missions.

 

    Jack ends up re-addicted to drugs and loses everything, including his two front teeth and self respect.  His family and friends turn their backs on him and he ends up alone in downtown on Los Angeles’s Skid Row.

 

   Jack lands at the Los Angeles Rescue Mission, a Christ-based recovery program.  Jack, previously sober in a 12 Step program has a hard time accepting the rigors of organized, right wing Fundamentalist Christianity and he rebels.   During the six months Jack is at the Mission, he studies his Bible but eventually he sees the hypocrisy of those who use the “God’s Word” to suit their own agendas.  In desperation and frustration, he uses again and is asked to leave.

 

   After a month on the street, Jack is accepted at the Midnight Rescue Mission.  He realizes for the first time in his life, that being white on the black run streets of downtown Los Angeles is not an advantage.  He learns to swallow his pride and now out of options, he permits abuse from several black men who despise him, solely because he is white.  He discovers he has become ‘small’ when all his life he had been ‘big.’

 

   Jack’s daughter Emma du Barry, along with her mother has moved to Boston.  Young Emma attends her mother’s (and father’s) alma mater, enrolling in Boston University.  Emma becomes a doctor, volunteering at several free clinics in the Boston area.  It is here where she meets Juliet Jensen-Ames, the very girl from Dogwood that Jack had propelled into a medical school of her own.  The two do not realize their Jack St. Clair connection until later in the book and well, you’ll see.

 

   While at the Midnight Rescue Mission, Jack writes an epic poem written in the Rap style of the streets called,  “Ode to the Nickel.”   He sees his addiction like an old lover gone badly and writes Dear Disease, a love letter to his addiction.

 

    Jack reclaims his life, and health.  He works his 12 Step program and for the first time since 9/11, he has hope for the future.  His lawyer James Westcott tells him that Bluesmen’s legal issues will soon be resolved and once again, Jack will be a rich man.  Jack makes a strange request of Jim, which puts into motion Jack’s plans for the future.

 

   It is now 30 years later when Jack sees his college sweetheart, the love of his life, Diane Dante.

 

   Diane is on a ten-city charity trip giving away shoes and socks to the homeless.  Jack sees Diane while she is volunteering at the Los Angeles Rescue Mission.  Diane is working for her church group giving away shoes and socks to the poor and taking a lesson from Jesus; they wash the feet of the poor.  Jack is so ashamed of what he has become, that he is unable to present himself to her.  Six days go by.  She is due to leave after seven.  Finally, painfully, he walks up and sits in her chair.  Without looking up Diane recognizes the unique feet, silently hoping it is her one true love. But what would Jack St. Clair be doing in a Skid Row mission?  Finally, Jack says their once favorite line (“Is this seat taken?”) and they are finally reunited. It is February 29, 2004.  Jack and Diane have not seen one another for almost thirty-two years.  Seeing that is Leap Day, Diane asks Jack to marry her and Jack immediately accepts.

 

   Emma has now traveled to Los Angeles to be with her mother.   Together Jack and Diane go to meet their daughter and tell her that her real father (Jack) has been alive all these years. Emma is overjoyed; having always secretly believing her real father was alive. Emma and Rosie, sisters now, meet.  Rosie promises to join them in their new endeavor once she graduates from Stanford.

 

   And this is where Love Is All You Need / Book Three of the Love Rescue Me Trilogy begins

 

     In Love Is All You Need, Volume Three of the Love Rescue Me Trilogy, we follow the further adventures of Jack, the Saint, St. Clair and the Love of his life, Diane Dante.  In Volume Two, Jack and Diane are finally reunited, after being separated for almost forty years.

     Love Is All You Need picks up where Love Hurts and Love Scars leave off.  Book Three continues as Jack and Diane, their daughter Emma,  Jack's daughter Rosie from Jack's previous marriage to Playboy Playmate Maggie (the Cat) Corday and Jack's heretofore unknown son, Stone Will Walker, join together to create a storefront outreach center in Los Angeles' Skid Row called The We Are Family Foundation.

 

     In this book we meet Father Timothy Circe, A Jesuit priest who has been blinded during a botched exorcism.  After losing his eyesight, Father Tim finds he is able to perform many  inexplicable and miraculous faith healings.  However, as is so often the case, this gift ultimately proves to be a curse.  Father Tim's power becomes his eventual undoing.

     Love Is All You Need follows Father Tim and his mother, the beautiful and ambitious Willow Circe, Jack and Diane St. Clair, their children Rosie St. Clair and Dr. Emma du Barry as they make their way in an unforgiving but translucent world.   We get to know Jack's long lost son Stone Will Walker, a chip of Jack's hard block.  Stone Will is also a boxer and guitar player.  We watch as Will is reunited with his mulatto son Freedom Walker and we watch Stone Will become the man (and father) he was always meant to be.  We are introduced to Dr. Emma's rock star husband, 70's rocker Dusty Dukes, who introduces his staid wife to a new type of lifestyle, only to almost lose her in the process.   We  come to know Jack's childhood friend Daryl (Delo) Lorenzo and his transgender wife, Leigh Darling,

 

    In Book Three, Love Is All You Need, we will follow the adventures of Jack's former protege: feisty widow, Dr. Jolene (Juliet) Jensen-Ames as she goes on a solo cross-country odyssey in search of her life's purpose.   Along the way, Dr. Juliet meets a mysterious old man who teaches her the meaning of life.  She also meets other unforgettable characters, as her own brand of sympathy and kindness affect all with whom she comes into contact.

 

    We will meet  Dr. Juliet's new love interest, the handsome and wholesome stutterer Adam Taylor.  Adam is dying from an incurable cancer and sorely in need of a miracle.  Juliet and Adam will marry and together with  Juliet's precocious daughter Dottie and Adam's impressionable son Cody, they become one happy family.

 

    All these characters will come together in the finale, a grand explosion of hubris, redemption, suicide, addiction, recovery, a miracle or two, and the joys of Love and child raising.  Book Threee follows these characters as they attempt to make their way and do right in a very confused and  indifferent society.  This book explores organized religion, faith, drug addiction, homelessness, recovery and many of the other issues that face us as a society today.

John Stover's other books can be seen at  

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