The Tides of History

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.

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

                           by Kay Kendall

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.

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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!

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 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>.