Spoken interview

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Here’s some background information for starters:

Don Bodey: I  live near where I was born, in  rural Indiana, in places I keep saying I am “fixing up,” like I’ve been saying about places in Florida for awhile, Oregon for nine years, Chicago for another nine. I’m a carpenter, and for most of my life I’ve been making my living by “fixing” houses while  I live there amongst the fixings, then get another one, fix it up.

Somehow I’ve also been a writer and sometimes a teacher of writing. I’ve taught at colleges and universities as a part timer. I got my Bachelor’s degree in 1968 and was immediately drafted into the Army, trained to be a mortar man, sent to Vietnam for 405 days, discharged. I earned  my MFA at Oregon, and came away with the beginning of  what would become F.N.G. 

I spent some years building houses on the coast, then ended up in Chicago, teaching and writing. Within six months, in 1985, my book came out, then won the Midland Award, and my house burned down. That tragedy overwhelmed the book. With two old friends–one was  81 years old–I bought a bar in a rather “tough” Chicago neighborhood and that lasted 3 years, during which I became a father. Full circle:20 years after I left, I came back to Indiana, with my wife and son, and went to work as a carpenter again, for the ensuing 20 years.

Without the mental wherewithal to be a writer and a fixer-upper, I assumed the pragmatic role of a carpenter again, and writing all but disappeared from my life. But it’s a strong pull to want to write, so when a publisher, Victor Volkman, offered to re-publish the book, and suggested I write something to tie it into today, I jumped at the chance. It took about 18 months to put it together, but the happy result is this new edition, which ultimately, consequently, brings me here.

Don Bodey's "F.N.G." Revised Edidtion

SKU 978-1-932690-59-0
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Product Details
UPC: 978-1-932690-59-0
Brand: Modern History Press
Binding: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Author: Don Bodey

Everyone is gunning for the New Guy

Gabriel Sauers of Two Squad is a soldier, newly arrived in Vietnam--a country too beautiful to invite so savagely unreal a war. But Gabriel won’t be a New Guy for long. He’ll go through incoming mortars, he’ll see the enemy alive. He’ll wander through a hell that will turn the green recruit lucky enough to survive into a death-hardened veteran, longing for nothing more than a return to the world of hot baths and cold beer, no bullets, and no noise. Now, 40 years later, he is grappling with an action on the verge of his grandson Seth’s deployment to Iraq that will change both their lives forever.

Critics Praise Don Bodey's F.N.G

"One of the most hard-hitting of all the vietnam novels" -- The Boston Herald

"A powerful social document and a well-written, deeply moving first novel...highly recommended" --The Library Journal "Raw, profane...a candidly moving portrayal of the average American soldier in Vietnam, who often found courage when he did not seek it--but little of anything else." --Chicago Sun-Times

"The day to day grind, beautifully and touchingly rendered by...a Vietnam veteran, is told with an unrelenting accumulation of detail." --The New York Times Book Review

"Bodey packs considerable emotional freight...into a style that remains deliberately supple, cool, and declarative...An impressive novel." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A harrowing vividly written account of hell with a leavening of light moments. A revelation for one who wasn’t there. Painful for those who were." —Bob Mason, author of CHICKENHAWK

"All Quiet on the Western Front drives its readers to the front of World War I. F.N.G helicopters its readers to a new front: Vietnam.” —Bestsellers

More info at www.DonBodey.com

The Reflections of History Series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
(an Imprint of Loving Healing Press)

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Don Bodey's "F.N.G." Revised Edidtion

 

 

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