The Rupture

The Rupture is about the crazy times we live in: current history. As well, it is
about the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre and the
gruesome carnage that is being planned in celebration of that incident; what
was then the unimaginable mass murder which occurred on April 20, 1999.
In this respect, it is also about the making of a monster.

The story follows the lives of two families, the Mendez and the Phylers,
from 1957 through 2009. Over the course of these 52 years their lives will
occasionally intersect as they experience the progression of American culture
from differing perspectives. They will witness 1950s affluence, the Free
Speech Movement, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, the
Civil Rights Movement, Wars and war protests, 9-11, Gay Rights, the struggle
for Gender equality, space exploration and unimaginable technological
advancements, love and hate, and the perils of those fluctuating tides and
economic oscillations. They will witness the best and worst inclinations of their
species until they collide and intertwine on that fateful day, April 20, 2009.

Richard Conard is a retired architect, since 2007, when he quit practicing architecture in Denver, Colorado and built a home on the lake of his childhood in Minnesota where his intent was to ski, fish, golf, relax and read. One intent was to catch up on the literary classics and those authors and books for which there wasnt sufficient time while fully employed. The winters in northwest Minnesota are long and frigid and considerable time is spent indoors. At some point where Conards main interests seemed focused on historical fiction and where current world events mirrored the experiences of the latter half of the 20th century, he imagined a story. And rather than waiting to read it he attempted to write it. The Rupture is the result of that effort.