TOGETHER WE JUMP, A Novel by Ken McAlpine (March) 361 pages. FLASH REVIEW: This is a beautiful quilt – a love story, in fact several; a coming of age story of two brothers; and a coming into acceptance of old-age story; a story prominently featuring a Mustang, an alligator and heroic turtles; of life and death, of real war and inner wars; a story with the poetry of Frost and Auden gracefully weaved into the prose of McAlpine: “The pain we suffer is not in things beyond us. The pain is in realizing, too late, that these things were not beyond us” and “Life is a tug of war between how we would like things to be and how they are. War is the same, magnified horribly.” And how can you not love a protagonist named Pogue? RATING, in honor of Roger Ebert: Two Thumbs Up!