The Fourteenth of September by Rita Dragonette

The Fourteenth of September by Rita Dragonette is rooted in Dragonette's personal experience in 1969 and 1970 when daily body counts from Vietnam and the looming Draft Lottery was met by youth anti-war protests, culminating in the horror of the Kent State massacre.

The protagonist is a young woman on a WRAIN scholarship to become an army nurse, her meal ticket out of her dead-end town. But Judy decides she must understand the war and her values first by becoming involved with the campus Freaks in the anti-war movement.

circa 1968-9 art by teenage me

For Boomers like me, the novel covers familiar territory, rife with personal associations, from the long hair and the rock music to the political and social events.

The approach is fresh--the story of a young woman grappling with her future, her attitude toward the Vietnam War, pushing herself to determine what she believes.

May 7 student protest against the escalation of war and Kent State
in the Herald, Kimball  student newspaper

I got Judy's motivation.

In 1969 as a high school junior, I wrote anti-war poetry for the school paper but dated a boy in the Civil Air Patrol, the armed service in his future. He needed the structure and discipline CAP offered him, his home life dysfunctional.

1969 Herald with my poem

In 1970 at a small college campus divided into Greeks, Freaks, and GDIs (God Damed Independents) I found myself friends with a Freak with long hair and long fringed coats, kids who smoked pot, clean-cut Vietnam Vets returned to finish their education, long-haired Vietnam Viets with jaded stories, Sorority girls, and everyone in between. I wanted to know all kinds of people, to be nonjudgmental, but stay true to my values.

But Judy was grappling with more than me; I knew I would not be drafted, while I knew the boys were worried. I felt guilty. But I was 'safe.'

The post-war generation was not the first or the last to question the judgment and decisions of those in authority. Each generation must find their moral compass, and chose how to respond. Today's young heroes stand up for gun control and women's rights and inclusion.

Kimball High School, Royal Oak MI newspaper photograph
of October 15, 1969 Moratorium demonstration in Memorial Park

I asked Dragonette questions about her motivation for writing the novel, if it was cathartic to have written the events in fiction, and how her story relates to the current youth-led protests.

I lived through many of the incidents of the time period and, probably because I was always the participant-observer writer, I knew that there were things that happened that absolutely had to be recorded and remembered. I waited years to see if they would be by other novelists, but no. 

I had a friend (he's on my acknowledgments page) who sent me a letter after graduation telling me that there was a story to be told and I was the one to tell it.  Well, if you tell someone like me--who is ridiculously responsible something like THAT---it's quite the monkey on your back.

I've always been very interested in the role of women in war. My mother was a nurse in WWII who did really amazing things (i.e. she was in Patton's Army doing meatball surgery on the front in a tent, helping to liberate Stalag 11 in Germany) and saw far more action than my father, but was undervalued because she was "only a nurse," versus my father whose life was on the line.

When I heard the stories they didn't make sense. I had two parents, both of whom were doing something equally patriotic, important, and dangerous, and it didn't seem logical to value their specific experiences differently.

When it came to the war of my generation I saw the same issues--[women told that] you can't possibly understand what we men are going through-- and I wanted to present a case to make it clear that we are in wars as a generation, a country---not as a gender.

I wanted to pose a female dilemma that was every bit as fraught and intense as the decision that had to be faced by the men of the time (1969-70).

There are two articles in the Featured Articles section of the Media tab in my web site that also talk about this at www.ritadragonette.com. Specifically, there is a highly-fictionalized version of an actual incident in the book where a vet is dissed in an anti-war meeting. I remember that, and how I felt that someone needed to stop it but it couldn't be me because I was a girl and no one would listen to me. It was the only time in my life I ever felt like a coward---and yes, writing about it--and the whole book--was cathartic--did help me understand it better as an adult and dissect the impulse.  I never let myself feel that way again.

I think we write--which is arduous  and why would we choose to do that?--because we have stories that must be told to bear witness, to instruct. When we write we share our personal experience and point of view on an issue we feel is significant and not yet explored.

It's not therapy (though I'm sure that helps), but it gives value to experience and feelings. I feel that we learn our history from facts and nonfiction but we understand it through narrative.

My story is based on some of the things that happened in my life and some of it was easier to write about than other parts. The mother scenes were excruciating. She wasn't exactly my mother, but any time you write about a parent real life comes through. I still cry over the fate of certain characters--one was real and another was made up whole-cloth.

I also don't feel this time in history has been sufficiently covered. Vietnam is the Voldemort of wars--we feel bad because we lost, there were atrocities, we treated our vets badly. So we don't teach or talk about it. But there are important lessons to be learned.

Thank God for the time frame (it's been 50 years), Ken Burns, and the availability of unclassified information. Now we can look at it dispassionately, more like WWII.

I'm glad that part of the legacy of Vietnam is that we've been extra cautious about getting involved in other conflicts (not totally, but we don't rush in to save the world) and so far there has never been a draft; we've learned that we owe vets the world, etc.

WRAIN was like ROTC but I'm not sure the guys had to enlist before graduation; WRAIN members did. They were told it was an unbreakable commitment unless they got pregnant. Part of the absurdity is that you see it really wasn't. Later I found out more than a few guys got out of ROTC. I also learned that you could get out of WRAIN if you just told them you didn't want to be a nurse--they didn't want to be shafted for all that tuition without payback. Lots of Catch 22 stuff still goes on in the military but Judy took it seriously, her dilemma is dead serious--she believed more than they did. Just like the war. Just like young people do and should. What's the parallel?  Guys were drafted and went because they were told they had too. Yet many bought their way out...

See my MS. magazine story (click here to read) about how the activists of my time were similar to the Parkland kids. It says it all. Social media beats the streets. Our issue was the war--there was death (no draft means no marches), and civil rights, early feminism. I love how [today's young adults] care about climate change (we could barely get Earth Day going in l970), LGBT, etc. As far as women's rights--it's an ongoing battle. We should go to war over men trying to control women's bodies--we are re-litigating issues settled long ago. It's the hamster wheel of history. We need to go forward not backward.

Progress is hard-won but fragile. If that's true, we are doomed to the hamster wheel of history and we're capable of more than that. We can STILL change the world.

Rita Dragonette

*****

The novel has won six awards including the National Indie Excellence Award for new fiction and book cover design.

Visit Dragonette's website to learn more about The Fourteenth of September. You will find excerpts, the song playlist, the trailer, an more.

I received a free book through a giveaway on the Facebook group American Historical Novels. My review is unbiased.

The Fourteenth of September (Paperback)
By Rita Dragonette
She Writes Press
ISBN: 9781631524530
Publication Date: September 18, 2018
Paperback $16.95, Kindle $8.69

*****

Further Reading:
Read my review of 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence
by Howard Means here
The Given World by Maria Palaia tells about a woman whose brother is MIA in Vietnam, my review here

All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin: A Mother's Crisis of Values, Familial Ties, and Sympathetic Understanding

"Finch is either completely innocent or a total sociopath. He's either more like his mother or exactly like his father. I have no clue which one it is, but I will find out." from All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin

There is a reason that Emily Giffin's novel All We Ever Wanted is on the bestseller list immediately upon publication. She is a fine writer who delivers defined characters caught in a complicated knot of the "he said, she said" variety, and rolls out the plot so the reader is hooked and, as the story progresses, can't resist being sucked into the current of ever-deepening revelations.

She incorporates issues of #Me Too, class, and race into the central story, along with youth issues of social media and peer pressure, so the novel feels relevant.

The plot revolves around Finch Bowning, just accepted into Princeton, whose family is extremely wealthy. His mother Nina came from modest roots, while his father Kirk was from one of Nashville's elite even before he became even wealthier. They seem to have everything.

Then there is Lyla, raised by her single father Tom. Lyla is on scholarship at a private school where kids like Finch are clearly from another world.

Then at a party one night, a photograph is taken and circulated, bringing crisis into all their lives.

Nina's own experience offers her insight into Lyla's situation and she wants justice for Lyla. Nina must consider the values her husband has brought into their family, where money is more important than people and anything can be bought. She is forced to evaluate her entire life as she seeks to walk the fine line between what is right and the bonds of family.

I had not read Giffin before and was very pleased with this book.

I won an ARC through LibraryThing.

Read an excerpt at
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/550983/all-we-ever-wanted-by-emily-giffin/9780399178924/

All We Ever Wanted
Emily Giffin
Hardcover | $28.00
Published by Ballantine Books
Publication June 26, 2018
ISBN 9780399178924

Revisiting Flowers for Algernon--Fifty Years Later

Daniel Keye's novella Flowers for Algernon was published in 1959 and in 1966 was expanded into the novel because of its popularity. I read the novel as a teenager in high school, and enjoyed it enough to read it several times. I also saw the 1968 movie Charly, based on the book. I had not read the book since then.

A little sniffing around the 'Net brought the information that Keyes was inspired when teaching special needs students and that characters in the novel were based on people he knew.

The story is presented through a series of journal entries by Charlie, who is

mentally impaired and working in a menial job with friends whom he likes, although they take advantage of him and make him the brunt of jokes. 

Charlie takes classes and sincerely wants to improve himself, to be normal. He agrees to become a test subject in hopes of gaining normal intelligence. Algernon, a mouse, showed amazing intellectual powers after receiving an operation. 

As Charlie's capacity for understanding grows, he outpaces everyone around him, including the scientists.

Charlie's parents had abandoned him to a home when his mother became concerned that Charlie might harm or abuse his little sister. He struggles with the demons of his now understood past, particularly the mistreatment he suffered from his mother, which left him unable to have normal sexual relationships. The psychology is very Freudian.

Algernon the mouse shows the effects of the experiment is short-lived and Charlie grapples with this knowledge, becoming manic in his obsession to find a cure. He also tries to reconnect with his family.

It seemed to me that the novel was informed by the sci-fi trope of the highly intelligent scientist who loses his humanity. And yet in the real world, I can think of a multitude of brilliant people whose compassion and humanity was amplified by their intelligence.

...I was an arrogant, self-centered bastard...incapable of making friends or thinking about other people and their problems." Charlie

In the end, Charlies is as isolated as a super-genius as he was with an IQ of 68. He calls for the need to respect all humans, regardless of their intelligence.

"But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.(...)Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love.(...)Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis." Charlie

My local book club read the novel this month, to great acclaim by all. Everyone thought the epistolary format offered great insight into Charlie's developing and declining intelligence. 

One member noted that in a few months Charlie went from a childish innocence through all the stages of development before regressing again--a coming of age story. Another mentioned he connected to the book because of a family member. And one woman's health crisis involved a loss and regaining of mental acuity. They all related to the story.

Several aspects of the book felt very dated to me: the Freudian psychology and the characterization and function of women. 

Charlie adores his teacher Alice, and when he reaches normal intelligence, he finds he is in love with her. She is responsive, but Charlie can't deal with sex with her. 

Charlie finds his 'need for human contact' filled by his free-spirited neighbor Faye, whom he does not love. She is fun and exciting and an extrovert who loves to dance and has little modesty. 

One line that will pull a few strings in today's female readers is when Charlie says, "you can't have everything you want in one woman. One more argument for polygamy."

I was surprised by the 'sex talk' in the book, perhaps one reason why it has been banned in schools over the years.

The club members gave the novel five stars, a few four, and considered it to be required reading along with 1984.

I was cajoled for rating it 3.75. I appreciate what Keyes was saying, but am not sure the novel has stayed fresh or that the messages are profound enough to be considered 'great' literature. I do think it is a good book for a young adult reader. And I expect younger readers will still find it a tear-jerker as I did fifty years ago.

I Have Lost My Way: A Story of Reclamation Through Friendship

Three teenagers in crisis are brought together in an Act of God moment when Freya falls off a bridge onto Nathaniel and calls for bystander Harun to help her get him to the hospital.

By helping each other during an eventful morning, they each discover they are not alone. By day's end, each character will overcome what has been holding them back and find a new lease on life.

I read the first 100 pages through a Bookish First Look sneak peak, and was given an ARC based on my first look review. When the book arrived, I finished it off in a few hours.

Freya is an aspiring singer who has lost her voice. Her father left many years ago and she is alienated from her sister, once her best friend and singing partner. If she loses her Twitter followers and chance at fame, who is she?

Nathanial was close to his dad, an irresponsible dreamer whose unreliability drove away Nathaniel's mother. Nathaniel feels out of sync with his peer group, isolated and alone. After his father's death, he has come to New York City with suicidal thoughts.

Harun's parents barely accept his brother's Caucasian, Christian wife. As an obedient Muslim son, he can't bear to come out to his folks and introduce them to his secret lover, James. It has caused a breech in their relationship.

The book is a quick read, with interesting and diverse characters, their issues reflecting contemporary concerns of young people: depression, abandonment by parents, the search for love, how to reconcile personal and family needs, how to determine life choices in career and mates. It is a book that can teach compassion. It is a hopeful book. These young people find support and friendship in each other, and are able to overcome the obstacles that threaten them.

This is my first read by Gayle Forman, author of the best-selling novel if I stay.

I received a free ARC through Bookish First.

I Have Lost My Way
by Gayle Forman
Penguin Teen
Paperback
Publication: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 1471173720 (ISBN13: 9781471173721)

From the publisher:
“A powerful story of empathy and friendship from the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of If I Stay. Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plansto run away from everyone he has ever loved, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City with a backpack, a desperate plan, and nothing left to lose. When a fateful accident draws these three strangers together, their secrets start to unravel as they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in help­ing the others out of theirs.
An emotionally cathartic story of losing love, finding love, and discovering the person you are meant to be, I Have Lost My Way is best­selling author Gayle Forman at her finest.”