My father, late of Inchon. Him and his pipe smoke. We’d roughhouse some and play a little catch.
My mother and father. Shouldn’t take much to match-make that pair.
Ziggy and his mom. Where do I start with the Zigster and his mom I at last get to meet? I can hardly wait!
First Lieutenant Ron Gibbs, our ROTC antagonist who arrived here far too early because of that Bouncing Betty. No hard feelings about our frat house stunt on his part, I trust.
Chief Warrant Officer R. Tracy, a 1974 suicide by gunshot. Poor bastard, I hope I hadn’t contributed to his depression. I’ll be a good host and let him bring it up if he so chooses.
Tom Backstrom, my all-time favorite sous chef, a genius with sauces and stocks. He was a 2006 auto accident, victim of a drunk in a Cadillac Escalade crossing the centerline. Wrong place at wrong time for Tom. He had no luck even when he was lucky.
Further, Tom was in his red Pontiac convertible he’d just won on that game show where a blonde makes letters appear. He’d found out he had to pay income tax on the car. I’d offered to help by using my pull with the restaurant owner to give him salary advances, but it hadn’t been enough. The IRS lien sent him over the edge into bankruptcy. No luck, no luck at all. I’ll ask Tom if he’ll assist me with the ribs. His barbecue sauce is to die for (pardon the pun)
Stepdaddy and Wendi too, her of ovarian cancer, much too young. When I came home from Nam, she and I did connect. It wasn’t me seducing her to spite her hubby. It wasn’t that she had grown to hate her hubby as much as he hated book editors.
We’d moved far beyond that. One thing instantly led to another, an up-close and personal extension of our correspondence. We got into her car and swerved into the parking lot of the first motel we came to. We fucked each other’s brains out. Lordy Lordy, Wendi with the bubble over the “i” was so sweet and needy. Last I saw her was when she dumped me, weary of my boozing. The only good thing I did for her was encourage her to unload Stepdaddy. I’ll graciously welcome them to my home, even him. Yeah, we’ll be an awkward trio. Should be interesting.
Larry Sibelius. No explanation other that he’s amongst us. Hopefully there’ll be time to take him aside and help him get his feet on the ground, so to speak. Am dying (no pun intended) to give him a blow-by-blow of Ziggy and me in the opium den. Am dying to hear about his lady poets. Were they all that he expected?
Former PFC A. Bierce too, the scalawag.
I should tell you that in The Land of the Living, Ambrose eventually finished Jesus of Capri. It went through four agents who flogged it for six years to fifty-four different houses before it found a home at a small press who released a dinky number of copies. Didn’t sell many initially, but got terrific reviews, the publishing version of good field, no hit. Then, fortuitously, a foaming-at-the-mouth televangelist got his hands on it. This self-righteous, big-haired ol’ boy was nationally known and syndicated. He prayed on his knees with presidents and senators, and influenced their policies, so afraid were they of his public disapproval.
He noisily proclaimed Jesus of Capri as perverted, lecherous, sacrilegious smut, the handiwork of Satan, Zionists, and the Vatican. Fortunately for Bierce, this was accomplished not long before God’s representative was nabbed in an airport restroom, inappropriately wagging his weenie.
A bidding war by big publishing houses ensued. Jesus of Capri made every best-seller list and made Bierce a zillionaire.
My notable army superiors, Major General Whipple, Brigadier General Lanyard, and Majors Papersmith and Blue succumbed to various and sundry geezerhood-related maladies. Prostate cancer, hardened arteries, strokes, advanced liver disease--the usual. Also amongst us are high school classmates and members of the Draft Board who saw through my professional studentship. Won’t have time to do more than shake their hands, say hi, and gesture to the self-service bar.
I continue reading. The roster is long. I myself was a geezer, so it ought to be. Ah, Mr. Singh of Bombay Tailors, too. Remember when I told him he should’ve been running a car lot? Talk about self-fulfilling prophesies.
After Singh skipped to the States just prior to Saigon’s fall, he settled in Southern California and became one of the nation’s largest car dealers, with a string of sixty stores. Singh’s ubiquitous TV commercials featured himself and his gleaming white smile, standing beside his special of the day, speaking sincerely into the camera with his clipped colonial accent that car shoppers inexplicably deemed irresistible. I wonder how he’s handling The Great Beyond without money to change or cars to sell. I’ll give him a little good-natured teasing. Next to last is the cackler, Quyen, the NVA colonel, non-sister of my Dragon Lady. Quyen bought it during the 1968 Tet Offensive, where she’d been sent back south to lead an assault. Cut in two by a GI’s machine gun. Can’t imagine what we’ll have to converse about, though I’ll always be grateful for her subbing for Mai with Papersmith.
On the bottom is Mai Le Truong Johnston. Cause and date of death not specified. She’d been married over forty years to a GI, a lifer sergeant last stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington. They resided in Lakewood, in south Tacoma, near the post, a mere thirty miles from me. For all those years.
How can this be? Had she had a bellyful of Quyen and her commie dogma, and her and her family being virtual prisoners in Haiphong? Had she gathered them up and sought political asylum or gone south after the 1975 collapse of South Vietnam under some pretence and become boat persons?
And what of Sergeant Johnston? I read the list again. His name was not on it, just hers.
If it is her. If it really is, perhaps she hadn’t returned to North Vietnam after all. I’ll have so many questions for her.
If it isn’t my Dragon Lady, well, our masters’ sense of humor can be cruel. I’m already quite aware of that.
To say I have mixed emotions is the mother of all understatements.
I get to work on the invitations. I shall invite everyone on the list.
I can’t wait for two weeks to pass.
Can’t.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary R. Alexander enlisted in the Army in 1964 and served in Saigon. When he arrived in country, there were 17,000 GIs. When he left, 75,000. Dragon Lady is Gary’s first non-mystery novel. He is the author of several mysteries featuring stand-up comic Buster Hightower--Disappeared, Zillionaire and Interlock--published in hardcover by Five Star/Cengage. He has had short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He resides in Seattle.
Read an interview with Gary at the Istoria Books blog at: http://istoriabooks.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-irreverent-goldbrick.html
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ABOUT ISTORIA BOOKS
Istoria Books is an e-publisher dedicated to providing quality fiction at affordable prices. We publish books in a variety of genres--literary, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, mystery/thriller, historical, young adult and more. When considering submissions, we ask ourselves two questions: do we want to keep reading this story, and do we want to keep hearing this author tell it to us? Offering good stories, well-told--that’s Istoria’s goal. If you think you have a story that would be right for us, check out our submission guidelines in the “About Us” section of our website.
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IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK….please consider posting a review and purchasing other Istoria releases.
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OTHER ISTORIA RELEASES:
DEATH IS THE COOL NIGHT ($1.99) and LOST TO THE WORLD ($2.99)
by Libby Sternberg
Two mysteries featuring Detective Sean Reilly
In DEATH IS THE COOL NIGHT, a struggling opera conductor can’t remember the night his nemesis was murdered -- did he commit the crime or is his beautiful new lover the culprit? Set in on the eve of World War II, Death Is the Cool Night is filled with great passion, music, and mystery.
The mystery continues in LOST TO THE WORLD when the war is over
and Detective Sean Reilly is home but not at peace. In the spring of 1954, he’s a widower with two small boys to care for while he tries to solve the case of a Johns Hopkins researcher murdered on the eve of the groundbreaking polio vaccine trials. With the help of new detective Sal Sabataso, he must first discover the victim’s true identity and his connection to the polio vaccine work before finding the culprit. He’s helped in his quest by a Hopkins secretary, a polio victim herself, who sometimes reminds him of his beloved late wife.
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SLOANE HALL by Libby Sternberg ($3.99)
In 1920s Hollywood, young John Doyle learns the craft of cinematography when a stupid mistake costs him his job. On a tip, he heads to Sloane Hall, the estate of a famous silent screen actress, Pauline Sloane, where he lands a position as chauffeur. Sloane Hall first offers him peace as he enjoys the bounty of the luxurious home, then unrest as its beautiful namesake returns and starts preparing for her first talking picture. Despite his best efforts to resist, John falls hopelessly in love with his employer. His future brightens, however, when she appears to return his affection, leading to plans for a secret wedding--until other awful secrets intrude, leading to heartbreak and separation. A story of obsession and forgiveness, Libby Sternberg's Sloane Hall was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
"Fans of historical fiction and Jane Eyre in particular will relish this novel, and readers who enjoy a love story should definitely pick this one up." Katherine Peterson --Fresh Fiction
"Libby Sternberg's intelligent and intriguing Jane Eyre reimagining has achieved two of the most difficult goals in a novel: being a page turner and paying a worthy tribute to Charlotte Bronte's immortal story." Bronte Blog
"Ms. Sternberg has written a beautiful novel....it did not let me go until the very end." The Book Binge
"Wow… Ms. Sternberg has a winner in this novel … She writes beautiful, tortured characters, puts you right in the time frame and crafts an amazing story around all of it. Wonderful job and a wonderful book..." My Reading Room
"Sloane Hall is an evocative retelling...readers will be hooked..." VOYA
KIT AUSTEN’S JOURNEY BY Libby Sternberg ($2.99)
Faith, heartbreak and love on the Oregon Trail...
In the spring of 1851, a young woman with a secret joins a wagon train heading west to California. Like most of the travelers, she's leaving something behind. But in her case, it's the prospect of deadly harm at the hands of an abusive husband. She has faked her own death in order to take on a new identity--that of Kit Austen, a woman making her way west to join up with her "brother" and start a new life as a schoolteacher.
The lies Kit has to tell in order to gain admittance to the wagon train as a single woman cause her conscience much grief. Her sadness is compounded when she begins to grow fond of the group's leader, a taciturn man of courage and know-how, who is running from his own secret sorrows.
KIT AUSTEN'S JOURNEY is a story of two people on the path to true faith and peace in their lives as they overcome both internal and external obstacles along the way.
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MAY 2011
LOVE FINDS A HOME - a five book series by Jerri Corgiat
SING ME HOME
FOLLOW ME HOME
HOME AT LAST
HOME BY STARLIGHT
TAKE ME HOME
Romantic women's fiction at its best!
First published by Penguin's Signet imprint, the Love Finds a Home series includes five award-winning books set in the small town of Cordelia, nestled in the Missouri Ozarks. Each novel showcases different members of the extended O'Malley family and their sometimes bumpy journeys toward happiness. These well-told stories will resonate with readers confronting similar challenges -- struggles with ailing businesses, damaged reputations, recovery from heartbreak and divorce, children's difficulties, career changes, and serious illness. From the first book to the last, you'll be entranced by the magnificent setting and the loving O'Malley family. Jerri Corgiat's voice sings throughout every story, capturing the beauty of the landscape and the strong emotions of her characters. Likened to bestselling women's fiction author Susan Wiggs, Corgiat excels at descriptive writing, making the reader want to book a flight to fictional Cordelia to spend more time with the O'Malley clan.
Just a glimpse of praise for Jerri Corgiat's Love Finds a Home books:
"....a powerfully moving story...a brilliant read..." Romance Reader at Heart
"Ms. Corgiat has become one of my 'must read' authors..." Romance Junkies
"....a rich multidimensional novel..." Contemporary Romance Writers
"...very poignant, filled with nuances..." The Romance Readers Connection
"...unforgettable characters resonate long after the last page is turned..." RT Bookclub, Top Pick
"..warm and touching...one of those wonderful romances that truly captures the heart...filled with joy and laughter, pathos and challenges..." Midwest Book Reviews
"...fast-paced, with flowing phrases and realistic characters..." Readers & Writers Ink Reviews
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