Amid the tumultuous 1960s, two men of vastly different backgrounds, Howard Fishman from Brooklyn, and Lastun Wicker of Yazoo County, Mississippi, forge an unbreakable friendship in the battle-scarred jungles of Vietnam.
When
they return home, they find a country wracked by the turmoil of anti-war
sentiment and civil unrest that epitomized the late sixties. They soon find
that, for them, The War Never Ends, as they face new dangers in the American
South and in the seamy underbelly of the concrete jungles of New York City’s
Harlem.
ISBN-10: 0578569663
ISBN-13: 978-0578569666
Now available on Amazon ($14.99)
and Kindle ($2.99).
I hope you guys are being cautious, careful not to expose yourself to potential infection by this insidious virus any more than necessary.
It is
important to remember that we, as humanity, have endured pandemics before, and
we will endure this one. The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 is mentioned
frequently these days. A short story of mine entitled, “The Spanish Lady” is a
fictional account of one family’s encounter with this disease. It was published
in the Fall 2005 edition of The MacGuffin.
My
mom will be ninety in July. She remembers the polio scare of the early ‘50s,
and says this current mindset reminds her of those days. She says people isolated
themselves—especially their children, since they seemed especially susceptible
to the disease—and all sorts of events and public gatherings were cancelled.
She planned to enter me in a “cutest baby” contest (yes, I was a cute baby.
I’ve seen pictures. My how I’ve changed!), but the event was called off. My
only memory of that time is our trip to the county fairgrounds, where I stood
in line to receive—communion-style—that precious sugar cube containing the
polio vaccine.
Moving
on, here’s a little self-promotion (that’s bragging in disguise). A short story
of mine entitled “A Case of Petit Mal” is scheduled to appear in the BewilderingStories.com ezine within the
next month or so. “Tea Cakes,” a poem of mine will appear in an upcoming
anthology entitled Grandma’s Cookie Jar.
The anthology is being edited by Yvonne Lehman.
One
of my goals when I started this website was to share something of what I’ve
learned during my writing efforts: the craft, the novels that have inspired
and/or influenced me, maybe cite some quotations from writers on writing. You
can find one of my early essays—entitled, “Letter to a Librarian.” It is under
the “Essays” tab on this site and relates a bit about how I first discovered my
love of reading.
When
I tell someone that I’m writing a book or a story, the first question I’m
always asked is, “What is it about?” I had that same approach at first. I
thought plot trumped character. As I gained more experience, I learned that a
more appropriate question was, “Who is it about?” While plot is important, and
necessary, I see it more and more as the result of actions by the characters.
So Gone With the Wind is a novel about
Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, and others and how they faced the challenges of
the Civil War and its aftermath.
The Great Gatsby is about Jay Gatsby,
and Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and how they dealt with Jay’s obsession with Daisy
(not very well, we discover).
And
so on.
I
also keep a file of quotes from writers as they discuss the craft of writing. I
skim through this file from time to time. It refreshes me, much like a cool
glass of water does when I’m thirsty.
So
I’ll close my first blog post with one such quote:
“But
don’t ever promise what you can’t deliver, and don’t initiate conflict that you
can’t resolve. Don’t load a gun that you will not fire, or light a fire that
you will not put out.” John Dufresne
