Steve Watkins is the author of the new young adult novel On Blood Road, which takes place during the Vietnam War. His other books include Sink or Swim and Great Falls. He is a former professor of journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature, he cofounded a nonprofit yoga studio, and he lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for On Blood Road and
for your character Taylor?
A: I guess it grew out of the idea that we were all tourists
in a weird way, in terms of our involvement in the War in Vietnam. During the
war you actually could go there as a tourist, and many did.
Plenty of family members made the trip over--at least to
Saigon and protected areas on the coast. Continental Airlines flew direct from
the States, I think.
If you read accounts of the war from the American
perspective, most of them barely mention the Vietnamese, except as marginal
players--either illiterate villagers who were either Viet Cong spies or hapless
victims, evil North Vietnamese who happily tortured, ambushed, maimed, and
killed in cowardly ways, or prostitutes.
None of which was true, except in the popular American
consciousness, and the terrible John Wayne film The Green Berets.
So I wanted to take a privileged kid from the States,
clueless about what was really going on and not having to think too much about
it, and drop him into the center of the insanity. Also this year is the 50th
anniversary of the Tet Offensive and the Siege at Khe Sanh.
Q: What type of research did you do to write the novel, and
did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: A LOT of research, starting years ago when I first began
teaching a college course on the literature of the Vietnam War. So I've read a
considerable number of accounts of the war over the years--novels, short
stories, poems, memoirs, historical accounts, analyses, films,
documentaries--that helped prepare me to write this book.
I read a number of books and articles on the so-called Ho
Chi Minh Trail (Blood Road), including the definitive work on the subject by
the journalist John Prados, who Scholastic actually ended up hiring to vet the
manuscript of On Blood Road, which was quite an honor, and quite nerve-wracking
as I waited for him to pass judgement as it were.
Not surprising, exactly, but heart-breaking nonetheless, was
learning, or being reminded of, the utter devastation from the bombing we did
for years in North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to interrupt the supply lines,
and the countless victims of those millions of bombs even today.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started
writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Didn't know, but certainly hoped Taylor would find a way
to survive. The Vietnamese characters grew in importance as I wrote the book, as
you might expect, and that determined--and changed--a lot of the directions I
may originally have had in mind. I must have written the ending a dozen times
or more.
Q: How much do you assume your readers will know about the
Vietnam War before coming to the book, and what do you hope they take away from
it?
A: Younger readers won't know much, which is why we added
the truncated summary of the war in the Author's Note at the end, and why there
are some hopefully non-intrusive expository sections in the novel, to provide
enough context for events for readers who aren't up to speed on the history.
I hope they come away with a thousand questions about the
war they want to explore for themselves. And an understanding of the deep
complexities of this and any war and the people who fight in it and are
affected by it.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A novel about teenagers in the French Resistance in
Occupied France during World War II, and the tragic experiences of some of them
who were sent to the only Nazi-run concentration camp (and associated work
camps) in France during the war, in Alsace-Lorraine. Truly terrible, terrible
stuff that I'm having a difficult time getting my writer's head around how to
handle.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Yes. We absolutely need stricter gun laws in this
country, and it's criminal negligence that we don't. Off topic, I know, but
perhaps not really.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This interview can also be found on hauntinglegacy.com.
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