The Canary Connection

The Canary Connection is an historical novel bringing to life events that revolutionize the world.
An everyday for peasants living on the Spanish coast becomes much more when Dante's desperate attempt to save his sister, Revela, casts their lives into an adventure of escape to new lands. They flee the family farm to journey in different directions pursued by Ygnacio de Silva, a psychotic incarnation of medieval ethics and the Spanish Inquisition.
It is August 3,1492, Christopher Columbus sets sail from Spain to the New World, AND it is the final day to comply with the King of Spain's edict expelling all non-Catholics under pain of death, thus the beginning the Jewish Diaspora. Was that a coincidence?
August 3, the Ninth of Av in the Hebrew calendar, a date burned in world history as the ports of Spain teem with escaping Jewish and Muslim families. Just who was on that boat when it left the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera?
The Canary Connection unfolds during this intriguing concurrence when Spain epitomizes intolerance, torture, and death. Dante and Revela join a group of Jewish exiles escaping the Inquisition and seeking refuge in the Canary Islands. Their lives entwine with key players of this archival moment, kings and queens, women and men of consequence and vision. World characters are presented with distinctive personalities and unique motivations, as those portrayed in Mantel's English history of Wolf Hall. The story boasts a new perspective that brings the past to life and confronts monumental issues that revolutionize mankind.

PHILLIP SPOLIN is a writer from Chicago now living in Pacific Palisades, California. He has received recognition for several short stories including, Jacob Calendar, Marty & Sally, and There's Someone For Everyone. The Canary Connection is his first novel. He is also the writer for the documentary, The Trap Tour, and has had a lifelong association with improvisational theater.
In my earliest thoughts I remember a desire to somehow find adventure beyond the alleys and vacant lots of the west side of Chicago. I waited until after years of schooling to fulfill that wish, leaving that great city on a home-built sailboat. It was my great escape. A long journey through the heartland of America down the Mississippi River, wintering in New Orleans, across the Gulf of Mexico and settling in Coconut Grove, Florida. From there I sailed throughout the Caribbean islands and Central America, and through a bizarre set of circumstances found myself working for a year in the Canary Islands.
Returning to the states and a twelve-year law career in Chicago, my island experience prompted a move back to that wonderful archipelago. There in the shade of a towering volcano, I was inspired by the story of Columbus who left from the Canaries to the New World. The unusual convergence of the departure of that voyage happening on the exact same date as the expulsion of all non-Catholics from Spain, invited a deeper investigation uncovering other intriguing and revolutionary events, a true Canary connection. Other writings and endeavors can be found at my website phillipspolin.com.