Dear reader,
My novel, The Quiet Bower is a fictional account of real life events, as experienced by my father—represented by Walt in the story—when he was in high school, and then in the military during WWII.
My father’s true life stories apparently had a big impression on me—looking back, it seems like I was always interested in that time period and the war: the music, the clothes, the movies, life on the “home front,” all things military, etc.
Creating the world of Walt and his friends and acquaintances, therefore, was fun, but it was a lot of work too! I starting collecting the necessary information nearly twenty years ago: interviews with people who eventually became represented by fictional characters, travels to US military training bases, several trips to Germany and Nuremberg—I even once, for several blissful moments, piloted a C-47 (that iconic aircraft having a central role in the narrative).
Walt’s great disappointment over not getting to be a military pilot—a hero, as he envisioned it—grew into a wisdom wherein he came to understand that the assignment he actually got was more lasting and important than anything he could have imagined: one in support of the proceedings at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (the famous Nazi war crimes trials), an advancement of international justice that still has significant implications today.
It is interesting that this revelation—coming out of an unexpected "quiet bower" place of reflection and insight—actually didn't come forth for me until I delved deeper and deeper into the details of my father's unique odyssey. Through Walt and writing the book I lived my dad's rich, soulful experiences (and they came in all flavors); only then was I able to "get it."
My preoccupation with WWII-period details was the motivation for presenting the book for the first time in the likeness of an Armed Services Edition—the significance of those publications is outlined very briefly on the inside back cover of TQB, for those who are unacquainted. Obviously, the goal is to draw readers into Walt’s world both tactilely and immediately—literally as soon as they heft the book into their own hands.
I should probably explain that although the book’s front matter retains my original date of filing for copyright (2003), this, the first edition for general distribution, was printed and released in 2016.
About me? I live mostly on Vashon Island, WA and write there and in Seattle.
Thank you for your interest!
Mark Hungerford
Author, The Quiet Bower
"An Armed Services Editions Facsimile" printing: 2016