HANK: Susan Orlean had a great tweet Saturday. She wrote something like: "can we just have a nice boring week, please?"
I'm with ya, Susan. I woke up yesterday and thought I'd feel safe..instead, I felt sad. I walked into the Dunkin Donuts, saw all the regular t-shirted messy-haired normal people just..buying coffee! And I burst into tears. My husband thinks I've lost it.
I'm with ya, Susan. I woke up yesterday and thought I'd feel safe..instead, I felt sad. I walked into the Dunkin Donuts, saw all the regular t-shirted messy-haired normal people just..buying coffee! And I burst into tears. My husband thinks I've lost it.
Anyway.We've been talking all week about the intersection of fiction and reality, so how perfect it is that debut author Kay Kendall (she's fabulous!) is here today to explore that, too.The Lure of Terrors Past—and Conquered
My first experience of the lure of
historic catastrophe happened at the movies when I was eight. On the screen a
small town celebrated the return of victorious soldiers from World War I, I
thought—How exciting it must’ve been to
live during wartime. I longed for the drama, the glory. What did I know?
That memory flickers in my head while I
watch events in Boston on my television screen. As I write this, the city is in
lockdown and Watertown is the focus of the manhunt for a nineteen-year-old
terrorist.
Lives have been lost this week. Many people have been maimed. This
terror has not yet been conquered. Perhaps there are more people involved,
perhaps more unexploded IEDs lying about. This may be drama, but it is not
entertainment. This is not fun.
But people
clamor for fiction that features events like this. How do we explain being
drawn to horror movies, spy stories, serial killers’ tales and the like? I
think fiction of this sort shows how people can act in catastrophic times,
overcome their fears and come out on top. When we read novels set during past
wars, we can get scared but know how things turn out. The Nazis always lose,
even if a few survive to plot another day.
I grew up
when the Cold War was pretty hot. I moved rapidly from a severe case of Nancy
Drew-itis to being mesmerized by John le Carré’s twisted spy stories. Much
later, when I felt compelled to devise my own mysteries, it seemed natural to
turn to my favorites as models. For a year I drowned myself in mysteries set
during World Wars One and Two and the Cold War.
Of all the
major wars of last century, only the wars in Korea and Vietnam weren’t “taken,”
weren’t overrun with thrillers. Vietnam offered a dangerous yet fairly empty
niche that needed filling…and I concluded I’d do the filling.
Draft
protests, draft dodgers and resisters are symbolic of that war, so much so it
seems millions of young men fled to Canada. However, that exodus wasn’t huge,
although it was the largest since colonists loyal to England moved north after
the American Revolution. (Famous in Canada, that group is called United Empire
Loyalists—I’d never heard of them.)
During the
U.S. involvement in Vietnam, by law Canadian immigration officials couldn’t ask
men entering the country about their draft status. Consequently accurate
statistics aren’t available. Informed guesses range from 125,000 down to
50,000. Whatever the number, further estimates conclude that roughly half those
who moved to Canada still remain. They settled into Canadian society, made
families and careers. Some even entered Canadian politics and were elected to
office.
For the
half of draft resisters who left Canada eventually, it’s impossible to tell
where they went. In 1974, President Ford offered clemency to Vietnam draft
resisters and deserters. Only 27,000
of 350,000 eligible applied before the offer (mandating two years of government
service) expired in 1975. Two years later President Carter pardoned those who
dodged the war by not registering or fleeing the country. Stigma still attaches
to the subject of draft evasion.
Desertion,
however, is a more serious offence, and it created political furor, especially
among American veterans of World War II and Korea. As late as 2005, a Vietnam
era deserter was prosecuted by the Marine Corps.
In my
debut novel, Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery, one young woman gets swept along by the tides of history
during the turbulent sixties. She’s a moderate—not an activist like “Hanoi”
Jane Fonda or Angela Davis. My fictional Austin
Starr, homesick Texas bride of a Vietnam War activist, must prove her husband
didn’t murder a fellow draft resister in Canada, the black-sheep son of a U.S.
Senator. When the Mounties are convinced David Starr is guilty and jail him,
Austin must find the real killer herself or risk losing everything.
I enjoy
writing about historical turmoil that lends itself to personal drama, intrigue
and murder, I can control the world that I build on the page. That is
comforting. But now I
must return to my television screen, to wait for the newscasters to tell me
that the crisis has passed, the bad guys are conquered. Waiting for comfort to
come, even if it is only temporary, only until the next horror fills my screen.
============================
HANK: Kay (who apparently has...a rabbit??) will drop in to
answer questions and respond to comments, and she'll give away a copy of DESOLATION
ROW (Stairway Press, Seattle) to a lucky commenter.
And we'll announce all this week's winners later today!
*************
Learn more about Kay
and her book at www.kaykendallauthor.com, on Facebook <www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>,
on Twitter @kaylee_kendall, and at LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/kaykendallmysteries>.
