{"product_id":"american-pie-9781736872888","title":"American Pie","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong my ancestors, first on my mother's side, then my father's, are a Mohawk Indian chief and the burgermeister of a northern German village. Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brant, fought valiantly against the Americans in the Revolutionary War. He died in 1807, and a Canadian general hospital in Burlington, Ontario carries his name today. I never learned the burgermeister's name. As a boy growing up in western Pennsylvania my grandparents explained to me that he had been shot to death in 1935, two years before I was born, for publicly speaking out against Adolph Hitler. The chief and the burgermeister inspired me to write what will likely be my last work of fiction, American Pie. I believe the novel to be rooted in truth about its subjects: greed, bigotry, cruelty, friendship, love and compassion, hypocrisy and politics - a grim, satirical, sometimes comic allegory speaking to our troubled world's past, present, and seemingly inevitable future. The story's major theme is expressed in the introductory epigraph, a single sentence from British philosopher Bertrand Russell: \u003cem\u003eCollective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those not regarded as members of the herd.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMB\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Sauce Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50899900989714,"sku":"9781736872888","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0c33944b-8094-4b2e-99a4-f9809a9c91b8.jpg?v=1738369217","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/american-pie-9781736872888","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}