When his parents become victims of America’s foreign wars, a talented teen musician abandons his Midwestern city for Washington, DC where he discovers a scandal that implicates the Oval Office.
A teen musician who’s lost everything. A ruthless billionaire who blackmails politicians. A showdown aimed at the Oval Office. Sixteen-year-old Moe lives for jazz. A talented musician, gifted mathematician, and crack coder, Moe divides his spare time between his jazz band, his cyber friends, and tinkering with his homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) application that he’s trained to compose its own music. When tragedy abroad strikes his family, Moe is orphaned and left to fend for himself. He abandons his Midwestern city for Washington, DC where he rooms with a former cyber friend and falsifies his ID to land a job working for the National Park Service in the vaunted President’s Park. There, he befriends a West Wing staffer who discovers that her boss is involved in a bribery scheme that reaches all the way to the Oval Office. Moe must decide if he should help her by using his fast-learning, jazz-composing AI companion in an unorthodox way to take on the powerful and sinister billionaire who has his sights set on Washington, DC. Moe grew up in a Syrian-American home. His immigrant roots make him no different than all other non-Native Americans whose families made their way to America seeking fresh opportunities. In Moe’s case, however, not only does he encounter an ugly wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric washing over his home country, but Moe’s family also suffers great tragedy from America’s never-ending foreign wars. Castle Keep explores the myriad ways war tears at the fabric of American life. From the centuries-old Jackson magnolia that stood as a silent sentinel watching over the shoulders of presidents since before the Civil War to the iconic spruce that serves as the National Christmas Tree, Castle Keep tells the less-told tale of President’s Park and the celebrated grounds that surround the White House.
