Rather, it's a story about fatherhood and family, about how there are some things we never, ever get over, about how love is enduring, and about how society can let down those who sacrifice most for it.
In 1914, privileged New Englander James Stonebridge and Louisiana native Obadaiah Nelson meet when they both volunteer with the French Legion. Years later, James lives on his apple farm with his grown son Jim, who is falling in love. James is a stranger to his son, who was just a young boy when his father left for war. It is only when James decides to join the Bonus Marches in Washington that Jim slowly begins to realise there is more to his father than the dour, often drunk, uncommunicative man that he appears to be.
Good Hope Road flicks back and forth between the First World War and the present as it stands for Jim, and the narration switches between James' First World War diaries, Obadaiah's story told in the first person, and the third person present. The three different threads create a layered story, and although they may seem like they may not come together at first, Mandanna deftly weaves a spell that brings all three to a moving conclusion.
