Synopsis

Little about Conrad Taylor’s primitive upbringing, in a remote mining town in the Amazon jungle, prepared the youngster for a first-of-a-kind scholarship to West Point. An extraordinary opportunity for most, it was a life-changer for him.

PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance has a simple proposition – fly or die!  It charts a sometimes-humorous journey of perseverance, resilience, hope, survival, and love. It describes a coming-of-age adventure, which traverses between Guyana and the highly-regimented United States Military Academy – at the height of the Vietnam War. The narrative sums up rude awakenings, especially after West Point – because of West Point.

Taylor offers up a ringside seat to what happened upon his return to a government turned repressive, anti-American, and paranoid – almost overnight. The Soviet-leaning, Cold-War-era dictatorship feared regime change. Its leaders obsessed about him being in cahoots with the United States. His was the impossible task of proving that he was not – or else!

More than a memoir, this historically-accurate book transports readers into a well-paced, compelling, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story with ease. Nostalgic for some, it will be shocking to many and enlightening for others. It provides a unique prism through which to see the cultural trauma of emigration, the unique experience that is West Point, the personal side of Cold-War-era geopolitics, and the mayhem of Third World politics. Its subtly-threaded love story sets it apart.