The Lighthouse Keeper

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

"A tale that goes straight to the heart!" - Booklist

"The Lighthouse Keeper is an unforgettable story about family, loss, and eternal love... Ten year-old Peter O'Banyon's life changes forever when his family dies in an accident. Orphaned, he goes to live with his garrulous Uncle Billie, the keeper of the Port Hope Island Lighthouse in Massachusetts. There, as the beacon leads sailors safely home, Peter learns an astonishing truth about Billie's past--and the power of love.

This message will guide Peter's life, even when World War Two's brutality rocks his faith, even when he returns to his young bride and an unimaginable tragedy. Now, in the final days of his own life, Peter needs to pass on the lighthouse keeper's secrets to his own daughter, but to do it may take nothing less than a miracle...”

"Pratt shows that the human spirit is like a lighthouse, capable of shining through the most devastating storms. His simple story will please readers ready for a good cry.”
Publisher’s Weekly

James Michael Pratt gives background:

"In The Lighthouse Keeper, the true war history of my father and his war unit, The First Armored Division, is told through the eyes of Peter O’Banyon. I chose to both honor my father and the courage of simple draftees as I recalled the war stories told to me by him. The anecdotal incidents about my father and his friends, General Patton’s arrival to the battle scene after the discouraging route of The First Armored Division at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, diary accounts from my father’s hand, and the official Battle History of The First Armored Division where used to create the World War II scenes in The Lighthouse Keeper.

"My Dad was tremendously hurt and touched by what happened to a particular friend on a street in Naples during an artillery barrage as recounted in the fictional story. His recall of the horror of the three month siege by the Germans on Anzio, Italy, the constant fear, the two and one half year ordeal he went through, all offered me emotional and first hand material to bring the dilemma of Peter O’Banyon to life in The Lighthouse Keeper.

"In The Lighthouse Keeper, what happened to create in Peter O’Banyon a gentler man, even though he endured the killing, also happened to my father as many witnesses who knew him can attest. My father was transferred early from actual Sherman tank radioman to the Supply Company, and he drove a "deuce-and-a half" as they were called, fitted with a 20- millimeter cannon. He participated in all the actual battles, and was in Ireland through Italy in all the towns and places as described."

Facts about The Lighthouse Keeper

• Released as a hardcover in February 2000. Twenty city national book tour.
  
  
• A National Bestseller hitting USA TODAY and regional lists.
  
  
• Exceeded sales of the hardcover edition of The Last Valentine.
  
  
• Audio rights were purchased by Brilliance Audio.
  
  
• A Main Selection for the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Clubs.
  
  
• Mass market paperback, with over 100,000 copies sold.
  
  
• Foreign rights sales for The Lighthouse Keeper in Europe and Asia.
  
  

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