A NEW BOOK IS SOON TO BE RELEASED in July 2024 —

The Colonel from Two Rivers: Matt Konop’s World War II Odyssey to His Czech Roots is the jaw-dropping true story of Two Rivers’ own Lieutenant Colonel Matt Konop. Konop’s native tongue was Czech, the only language spoken on his grandfather’s farm near Stangelville, Wisconsin. And, Czech would be his superpower the last week of World War II, earning him the assignment of commander of the advance party to liberate Czechoslovakia. Of all the places to poke across the border, the US Army sent him to the same remote villages his grandparents had left for Stangelville in the 1860s. The jubilant Czechs gave Konop a hero’s homecoming, parading him around town on their shoulders as their liberator, hailing him as “one of our own.” The experience flipped Konop’s sense of who he was. Instead of running from his poor, Bohemian upbringing, it became his greatest passion. However, like many returning combat veterans, Konop didn’t speak about the war. Meanwhile back in Czechoslovakia, the Communist regime outlawed the telling of his story. Then, 23 years after his death, Konop’s long-forgotten manuscript was discovered in a basement and his grandson, Patrick Dewane, turned the writing into a one-man show titled, The Accidental Hero. It became a hit, both in America and the free Czech Republic, and the second life of Konop’s heroics prompted the cities of Two Rivers, Wisconsin and Domažlice, Czech Republic to become Sister Cities. In this book, Dewane weaves a story of freedom, family, loss, and resurrection. Told with humor and the heartfelt love of a grandson, The Colonel from Two Rivers reminds us how quickly the ordinary can transform into the magical.

Patrick Dewane has performed his award-winning one-man show The Accidental Hero over 200 times across the US and in Europe. His four-decade career in the performing arts includes senior-level work with The Dance Theatre of Harlem, Luciano Pavarotti, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Minnesota Opera and its Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night. He was nominated for an Emmy as Executive Producer of a national PBS broadcast of Silent Night. A graduate of Roncalli High School, he has an MFA from Brooklyn College and taught writing at the graduate school of St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He and his wife live in Minneapolis and have a second home in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.