In Search of an America

About the Book

Born in Hungary, author Gabor Bethlenfalvay spent his early childhood under privileged circumstances that he remembers as his Garden of Eden. It was a paradise until the end of World War II. He tells of the events of joy and of tragedy in his life before and after the war in his Xlibris publication: In Search of an America: An Introvert on the Road.

In this ‘tale of the road’ the author relives how he and his family fled west, just before the Red Army overran his hometown, to end up in a small village in Bavaria. There, six years of exile were spent absorbing a classical education amid the rubble of post-war Germany, until emigration to the United States became possible. Assembly lines in Chicago and in Omaha were the author's first introduction to the New World, until he found his path to Military Service. He became a paratrooper and an officer but decided to return to school to study physics. In spite of an advanced degree, doubts about his vocation pulled him back into the Army. The war in Vietnam finally impelled him to resign his commission for good and to strike out for California with his young family to study biology, a decision that led to a doctorate and a research career exploring the web of life in the soil.

The repeated back-and-forth between academia and the military and between Europe and the USA helps him explore and compare religious, political, sociological and scientific attitudes and patterns of thinking in the Old and New Worlds. He learns to view his new home with critical detachment.

A candid look into a colorful life journey during one of history’s most tumultuous times, In Search of an America: An Introvert on the Road chronicles how one man finally realized that the long road that led him to the fog-shrouded mountain outside his study window in San Luis Obispo was all part of his search for his personal utopia, 'an america,' that of his childhood dreams.

About the Author

Born in Hungary before World War II, the author spends his early childhood in an upper-middle class milieu that he remembers as his Garden of Eden. Days before the Red Army overruns his hometown, he and his family flee west through to end up in a small village in Germany. Six years of exile there include long periods of cultural growth in school, until emigration to the United States becomes possible. Day labor at assembly lines in Chicago and in Omaha is the author's first introduction to the New World. From there his convoluted path leads him to service in the military, then to school to study physics. When that becomes a dead end, his road leads him back to the Army and from there finally to a doctorate in biology, after experiences of a tour in Vietnam makes him resign his commission. The repeated back-and-forth between academia and the military and between Europe and the USA help him to explore and compare religious, political, sociological and scientific attitudes and patterns of thinking in the Old and New Worlds. He learns to view his new home with critical detachment. In retirement, after years of work on the ways leading to sustainability in agriculture, he finally realizes that the long road that led him to the fog-shrouded mountain outside his study's window in San Luis Obispo was nothing but a search for a utopia, 'an America,' that of his childhood dreams.