First Place Winner for Biography from CIPA's 2009 EVVY Awards and a Finalist for USA Best Books of 2008 in the history/military category, this is a book about life and death in Vietnam, but it is also a book about all wars and the families they affect forever.
The author will be presenting at the following: Georgia College and State University, Nov. 12-13; Kiwanis Club of Roanoke Valley, VA, April 14, 2010; Military Officers Association of Roanoke, VA, April 15, 2010.
At least two stories weave through this astonishing book: the story told by Donn Sweet, who was drafted and reluctantly became an excellent officer in the combat zones just south of the DMZ, and the story of his little sister, who bumbled her way through the protest movements on her college campus and then locked her grief for thirty-eight years in the burial vault that held her brother. In this book we discover the humor, vitality, and courage of Lt. Sweet while becoming intimately acquainted with the agony and fury that gripped his sister after his death. "This book," writes one Vietnam veteran, "leaves me speechless." Acclaimed by readers in book clubs for its emotional power, it holds enormous interest for historians as well.
About Evelyn Sweet-Hurd
Evie Sweet-Hurd holds the B.A. from Duke University, the M.A. from the University of Richmond, and the Ph.D. from Baylor University, but sometimes she still feels like the
little girl in pigtails who idolized her older brother. In the decades after his death in Vietnam, she took tiny steps to absorb the reality: She tried to watch Saving Private Ryan, but she couldn’t get past
the first three minutes; she visited the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., but her husband had to carry her out.
After moving a box of Donn’s letters around with her for more than three decades, she finally sneaked a peek inside and knew that it was time to write. In this book, you will join the author as she reads
the letters from her brother, letters that juxtapose the mundane with the horrific. A paragraph asking about his beloved car (“Patti Porsche”) or his mother (“Toombie”) may be followed by details of troop
movements or his opinions of American politics in 1968. You will come to know the young college graduate as he becomes a weary Army officer who “takes a dandy souvenir” from a dead VC soldier and who worries
that his men are so exhausted that they may make mistakes and fire on their own troops. And you will come to know the author of this book, as she stumbles through college while her brother is in Vietnam and
as she looks back on the years of trying to understand that conflict and cope with the death of her brother, who was awarded the Silver Star for sacrificing his life for his men.
Today Evie lives near Atlanta, GA, with her husband, their two children, and three dogs. Her mother, Donn’s “Toombie,” is now 98 and lives with them as well. Evie is currently working on her next book,
which should be available in 2010.
To reach the author, click the "contact author" button to the left. Her personal blog, where readers are joining the conversation, is linked below:
