CJ thinks that what his Uncle Ryan does for a living as a wildfire fighter is all fun and games-hiking up steep mountains, camping out under the stars, not to mention the excitement of fighting a forest fire! But when a huge fire is burning close to CJ's house and he can see, hear, and smell the raging fire, he begins to understand how dangerous his uncle's job really is.
It is 1966, when a nineteen-year-old boy from Three Rivers, Michigan, follows family tradition by enlisting in the United States Navy. A plan which he thinks will guarantee an uneventfful tour of duty aboard a US naval ship goes awry when he is deposited in the middle of a war zone in South Vietnam. For the next gruelling year, he performs the duties of a fleet marine force medic, caring for wounded and dying American marines. Dubbed Doc John by his comrades, he soon becomes entrenched in a strange, dangerous world, where he becomes both witness and reluctant warrior. Whether he is patching up wounded comrades or placing Band-Aids on scrapes of native children, young Doc John somehow manages to do an impossible job, even as the world is falling down around him. He not only learns the sad lessons of war, but survives them and finds himself in the process. These are the experiences of a different kind of soldier, who manages to traverse a minefield of emotional upheaval and can still tell his stories with honesty and self-deprecating humor, exemplyfying the resiliency of the human spirit.
An author of racy novels heads to picturesque Vermont to finish his manuscript—but finds his retreat less than peaceful—in this “bright, slapstick comedy” (The New York Times). Told through a sequence of exchanged letters, this comic novel introduces softcore pornographer “Guy LaDouche” as he heads to the wilderness in the hope of solitude and concentration to write his next book under a looming deadline. Instead of peace, he finds harassment and distraction—from his publisher, his old girlfriend, and an angry father convinced that LaDouche’s last novel, featuring a genuine nymphomaniac, was based on the man’s daughter. Soon, the author also finds his quiet getaway plan beset by a lawsuit and investigation by the FBI and local sheriff. Clever, satirical, and at times over-the-top absurd, The Man Who Wrote Dirty Books has been delighting readers since its first publication in 1964. “A very funny tale. . . . It would not be quite true to report that The Man Who Wrote Dirty Books contains no word capable of bringing the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty, but it is perfectly true that the thing is neither a dirty book nor about them.” —The Atlantic
