DC resident Eric Hughes is a regular at the Channel Inn’s Pier 7 Restaurant, dining there most Friday nights and Saturday mornings. But on Sunday, December 2, Mr. Hughes will be in the Channel Inn’s Engine Room from 2 – 5 p.m. for a different reason: to hold a signing of his novel Our Time – Another Bond (Xlibris, 2011). The book – Mr. Hughes’ second, but his first novel – is a provocative and exciting work which gives readers a glimpse into the turbulent 1960s. It tells the tale of Paul Hodge and Irene Dudash, whose interracial adolescent love affair defies the social norms of the 1960s’ American society, as they face adversity during a time of great social change. The story fuses friendship, music, love, family, commitment, civil rights and other themes into a captivating story. Michael Carson of the Midwest Book Review calls Our Time – Another Bond “a thoughtful and choice read, very much recommended.”
This is not Mr. Hughes’ first foray into the written word. A former cryptographer at the Department of State who provided communications support at the 1974 Yalta Conference attended by President Richard Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, he was denied career advancement because of racial discrimination. After a successful suit, he moved to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Department of Commerce, where he also faced discriminatory treatment that was eventually recognized and overturned by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Drawing on these experiences he wrote his first book, The Third Burden – My True Story of Defeating Discrimination in the Workplace (Wendibrand, 2002), in which he offers strategies for winning workplace discrimination cases in court.
The book signing will be held on Sunday, December 2, 2012 from 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. at the Channel Inn Hotel (Engine Room), 650 Water St. SW, Washington, DC.
By The Southwester Staff, with thanks to Eric Hughes.