Lake City Reporter - June 20, 2010
STARING AT A STORY
AUTHOR'S LATEST WORK A RESULT OF PERSONAL MOTIVE
Pierce Kelley didn't know about the "Thousand Yard Stare" when he decided to write his eighth novel, but his friend, George, did. George, who would become the protagonist in Kelley's "Thousand Yard Stare," (iUniverse, $25.95 for the hardcover and $15.95 for the softcover) knew it well.
George has been to war. He knows about the phrase used to describe the vacant, dazed stare of a battle-worn soldier, a stare that is symptomatic of those who experience the shock of trauma in war zones.
And like George Murphy in Kelley's latest work, the soldier returned from Vietnam with the affliction to which that stare is often precursor: post traumatic stress disorder.
Kelley writes his novels to both educate and entertain, but the motive behind "Thousand Yard Stare" is personal.
"George is a friend," Kelley said during an interview in Lake City. "He's troubled by PTSD still."
Kelley's trouble in starting the book was that he knew little about PTSD and despite having lived through it, not as much as he needed to know to write a book about Vietnam. Still, the writer is Cedar Key attorney by day who has an insatiable appetite to both learn and teach. His novels accomplish both by centering on the legal world of "what if?"
What if you've had a couple of drinks, get behind the wheel of a truck and are responsible for the death of your passenger-- essentially DUI Manslaughter (Asleep at the Wheel)?
Whati if you sign a "release" before renting a horse, before getting injured and before envisioning the rest of your life in a wheelchair (A Foreseeable Risk)?
What if you give chase to the man whose thwarted attempt to rob you at gunpoint is followed by a charge of vehicular manslaughter resulting from your attempt to apprehend the criminal (A Plenary Indulgence)?
And in "Thousand Yard Stare," what if you return from war with a disorder that has yet to be defined and, as Kelley said, "flip out and commit a crime and are looking at going to prison for something you never would have done otherwise?
Not guilty by reason of insanity? That's the nightmarish legal world --a world not as much about the law as a "battle of experts," according to the author -- to which George Murphy descends.
As Kelley delves into that story, he takes the reader along with hard-hitting prose that mirrors the physical and psychological battle-fields of George Murphy's life.
For many of today's readers, and their families, those are battle-fields with which they will too easily identify.
"This relates to what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan," Kelley said. "We're not fighting a man. We're fighting land mines and suicide bombers and we're fighting battles within our own minds when those soldiers return home," the author said.
For the men and women who are struggling with PTSD Kelley has dedicated his book. If his readers arrive at the end of the novel more educated about the disorder, Vietnam and the challenges today's soldiers face, he will consider the work, mission accomplished.
"There's something inside me that makes me want to teach people what I know," Kelley said.
That something won't stop with "Thousand Yard Stare."
Kelley's next project: an autobiographical account tentatively titled, "Father, I must go," about the legal trials of an illegal alien deported after 15 years in the United States, but who has a reason to return.
Like "Thousand Yard Stare," the book will be founded in non-fiction.
"I like a tell a good story," Kelley said. "I like to educate, and I like it to be real."
The real world is that is the aftermath of soldiers is encased in "Thousand Yard Stare." Find out more about the book and the author at www.piercekelley.com.