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JUNE/JULY 2013 MACON MAGAZINE I 43 Celebrating our 25th anniversary on August 1st. Locations: Mercer Village: 254 -7707 Bass Road: 477-8833 Zebulon Road: 477-2410 Presidential Parkway: 757-1300 www.margaritasmexicangrill.com She does book signings and author appearances. In February, she spoke at the National Archives in Washington D.C. But you get the idea Bonaire author Dodie Cantrell-Bickley isn't all that interested in rave reviews, marketing tactics, Amazon rankings or even a tsunami of sales for her new book, "The Reason of Fools." It's more personal than that. Published in late 2012 by Regeneration Writers Press in Macon, the fact-based novel has garnered wide acclaim and an enthusiastic readership. For Cantrell-Bickley, it's simply a family story she felt compelled to write. A broadcast executive for more than 30 years, Dodie worked as a reporter, news anchor/producer and television station general manager in Macon and Jacksonville. Along the way, she received Associated Press awards, Emmys and numerous other professional accolades. She retired from television last year. One of her post-career goals was the completion of the book she began 25 years ago. It's the first of a three-book series about her German mother, Liselotte ("Lilo") Burkhardt's life in Nazi Germany during and after World War II. Lilo and her father, Georg, risked their lives to help Jewish citizens escape from Nazi Germany. The well-researched tale is riveting, particularly the well- crafted scenes that place Lilo in Austria in 1945 at the Bund Deutscher Madel, ("League of German Maidens") camp for young women. Recruits, willing or not (as was Lilo), were required to be ethnically pure Germans and free of hereditary diseases. They were assigned dangerous wartime tasks that threatened their lives daily. "The Reason of Fools" is based in part on a cache of love letters and photos Dodie found hidden behind a guestroom vanity after her mother's death. The letters were from Lilo's young fiancé, Peter Mueller, a reticent German soldier who died fighting on the Russian front. The book also chronicles the wartime activities of Bud, a fictional American WWII soldier from the U.S. South, who was modeled after Dodie's father. Bud is one of a few white officers leading the first all-black tank unit, the renowned 761st Tank Battalion, or "Black Panthers." Among other heroics, the battalion, including baseball great-to-be Jackie Robinson, assisted in the April 1945 liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. The author fictionalizes a dramatic scene sans romance that intersects the lives of Bud and Lilo at war's end. Both characters had witnessed inequality, prejudice and man's inhumanity to man, based on racial and ethnic differences. Dodie has dedicated "The Reason of Fools," with the title reflecting Voltaire's quote, By Paige Henson Peace with the past: Novel delves into family history and WWII Photography by danny gilleland Dodie Canterll stands with a collage containing her mom's photo- graph and World WarII letters that inspired the book. Continued on page 45