Above all else, I want to involve the reader in the characters’ lives and transport him to their world.
One of my life’s greatest pleasures has been reading, and I want to give back. Life for too many has turned hard in recent years, especially for young people. I hope to provide readers a brief escape.
So why write a story set around such an ugly part of America’s history?
For one thing, I feel that I owe a debt of honor to the young men who died way too young as well as to those who survived grievous wounds. Many of them suffered through the rest of their lives in pain and disability.
Fifty years later, some still blame the young soldiers for the war’s brutality. From my perspective, it was not that those who served in country were callous and brutal to begin with, it was that some ended up that way given what they endured. I believe that happens in every war but was more visible during the Vietnam War.
No other American war has been opened up so thoroughly to the civilian public. News pictures and films from World War II and Korea had been mostly in black and white. Brief film clips shown in movie theaters were accompanied by patriotic music and stirring description. In the Vietnam War, dramatic images appeared on TV every day, at length and in color. For the first time ever, blood and gore became highly visible. Time allotted to news programs increased from 15 to 30 minutes. The entire world tuned in every day to the suffering of young Americans as well as North and South Vietnamese civilian and military populations.
Massive public opposition to the Vietnam War led to tighter military controls levied on reporting subsequent American wars.
Do I really think that anyone today will be interested in reading about the war and its times? I don’t know, but I hope so. However, I have recently read that books about the war are currently out of favor with publishers.
I still intend to keep pushing for publication of The Pig Parts Series. The series of novels offers a unique perspective on the war, that of the wife… a celebrity and business woman. The vast majority of books published on the war are memoirs from the soldier’s perspective. I believe the series is entertaining on so many different levels and deserves to be published.
Now I have to get it done. As Nick, the heroine’s Vietnam bound love would say, “Piece of cake, Baby.”
Sure.