Life does not follow a straight line. It often zigzags.

That is the feeling that Wichita State alumnus and author Mark Wentling creates in his novel, “Africa’s Embrace.”

Wentling is from a small town in Kansas and dropped out in his final semester at WSU to join the Peace Corps. He served two tours with the U.S. Peace Corps. The first time was in Honduras, 1967-1969, and the second time in Togo, 1970-1973, a small country in western Africa.

“Africa’s Embrace” is fiction, but it is also a thinly disguised autobiographical account about the time Wentling spent working, traveling and living in Africa.

The story begins in a small African village with the protagonist participating in one of the village’s festivals that celebrates the full moon.

The festival includes wild, ecstatic dancing from the villagers and the protagonist joins in the dancing.

He loses himself in the celebration, and then feels a single beam of moonlight shine on him as he is lifted into the air and gently drifts down the mountain.

This is one the many scenes of the up and down clash of fiction/magic and reality that Wentling creates in his novel.

From here, the story progresses one day at a time, with each chapter telling about the day’s events, but also giving deep insights and observations from the protagonist’s point of view.

Every chapter is set in the present, but extends into the future and into the past of the people in the village and also the protagonist himself.

The story feels like it takes place over the course of a couple months, but in reality, it encompasses all of Wentling’s time in Africa.

The novel provides a unique insider and outsider insight into the social structure of the village, the customs and beliefs of the people there and their roles.

The protagonist also describes the relationship between villages and of the larger country.

At one point in the story, he travels to the capital city and describes life under the dictator and his political regime. Corruption, poverty, fear and insecurity are what he sees and describes.

“Africa’s Embrace” is not a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, nor is it a New York Times bestseller. But it is a good novel that sheds a positive light on the real people living in Africa.

It also shows us that no matter how much we try to change our destiny, how much we veer away from our path from life and death, we will always end up in the place where we are meant to be.

And for Mark Wentling, that place is in the arms of Africa.