Slashing the Axis Underbelly

It is nearly impossible for a visitor to Italy to believe that this nation was an official enemy of the Allied forces in World War II. Of the three legs of the Germany-Japan-Italy Axis stool, Italy was the least belligerent. Its blustery dictator Mussolini was a tool of Adolf Hitler and when the war came to Italy, it was the German army that did the tough fighting.

The war came to Italy because it was clear to the Allied command that the most vulnerable place to launch an offensive against Germany was through Italy - the "soft underbelly" of the Axis in Winston Churchill's famous phrase. A key thrust was the landing on the beaches of Anzio, some 33 miles south of Rome, and the fighting was vicious.

War historian T. R. Fehrenbach's account of the assault, Anzio, brings the four month action to life with searing power. We had to take Anzio and we did, but at a terrible price.

The beautiful port town of Anzio has been awarded a "blue flag" for the quality of its beaches. But in 1943 the sand ran crimson.

- Richard Curtis

Excuse Me, Ava Gardner, Would You Like to Dance?

Recently, when we promoted Maggie Davis's torrid genre romances, we told you that she was also a serious mainstream novelist, and in Stage Door Canteen she has reconstructed the famous World War II recreation center where a furloughed serviceman could set his cares aside for a few hours and dance with a pretty girl before returning for duty. Sometimes stars of stage and screen would offer to serve as hostesses, giving GI's not just a dance but the memory of a lifetime.

In this E-Reads Original, Maggie Davis has created a cast of men and women unknown to each other, whose lives intermingle on a dance floor illuminated by the fires of war. When a man stepped out on that floor he didn't know if he'd be holding in his arm the girl next door or an exquisite movie star. Or a German spy...

- Richard Curtis

Submarine Warfare - a German Captain's Tale

Though World War II ended over sixty years ago, to all who served or simply followed it from the Allied viewpoint, books sympathetic to the Axis viewpoint make us uneasy to say the least. Such a book is Grey Wolf, Grey Sea by E. B. Gasaway, which chronicles one of the war's most successful U-Boats and its captain in savage confrontations on and beneath the sea. The U-124 was both predator and prey, and much as we hate to admire Kapitanleutnant Jochen Mohr, his courage and determination are impossible to deny.

T. R. Fehrenbach

It’s always dangerous for agents to become too friendly with their clients, for friendship compromises objectivity, and though I much prefer twisting publishers’ arms to those of authors, every once in a while we find ourselves in a position of leaning on a client. In any case, if you’re going to be friends with an author, it’s better for the author to become a friend than vice-versa. Both the friendship and the business relationship last longer.

At least that is demonstrably true of my relationship with T. R. Fehrenbach, whose first story I sold in the dawn of history (I can’t stop you from googling dates but you’ll get no cooperation from me) and who today represents the longest author friendship I have ever enjoyed. And “enjoyed” is the right word. In my apprenticeship at Scott Meredith Literary Agency I handled for Fehrenbach – “Ted” – a number of books that have turned out timeless classics such as Lone Star, justly hailed as the greatest one-volume history of Texas ever written, and This Kind of War, an account of the Korean War that has never been surpassed. Fehrenbach is a Texan and was an officer in the Korean action and he certainly knew whereof he spoke when he wrote those books. But he also wrote a history of Mexico and a book about Swiss banks among others, excellent works combining scholarly research and a lively, entertaining style. E-Reads is happy to carry a number of these works and we invite you to read them.

During my tenure at Scott Meredith, Ted and I exchanged letters that ventured far afield from business correspondence. Our subjects ranged from philosophical to personal but we never stepped over a line that might make it difficult for me to be businesslike with him and for him when the going got rough. As someone who had never served in the armed forces I looked up to him reverently. He assured me that it took as much courage to go up against a publisher as it did to go up against armed troops. It was flattering to be thought brave by a soldier and I have always been grateful that he never made fun of me for buying into this truly preposterous notion.

When I started my own agency, Ted became a client, but our friendship has endured. And some of his supporters are honoring him with an award named in his honor, details of which will be included in an interview with Mr. Fehrenbach which will be posted shortly.

-- Richard Curtis

ON KILLING by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

(Updated 10/12, adding an interview w. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, following this introduction)

Of the thousands of books I have represented, there are very few about which I can say it was an honor to be associated with them. On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is one of a handful that occupies a very privileged place in my heart. That it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize validates my contention that it is an extraordinarily significant work.

By the time Col. Grossman submitted his manuscript to me in the mid 1990s, the Viet Nam War, from which he had drawn so many poignant lessons for his research, had been ostensibly over for two decades. I say “ostensibly” because, for the traumatized veterans that he worked with as a combat psychologist, the war raged on in their tormented memories. Even as he comforted and helped heal countless men in veterans’ facilities, he was also asking questions of them that few had had the courage to ask, and formulating insights that enabled him to understand the experience of killing in ways that historians and social scientists had seldom grasped. I remember his telling me that killing was the last intimate act between humans that had not been explored scientifically. How odd, that an evil to which humankind has forever been exposed, should be a black hole in our understanding.

Out of his intensive studies, observations and interviews Grossman formulated a science he calls “Killology.” It’s a disturbing term but it pins us to his topic like a bayonet and forces us to gaze, eyes wide open, at an act that is both obscene and profane. Yet at the heart of his thesis is the contention that humans have an innate aversion to taking life. Given the sad history of our race that’s a large pill to swallow, but if you suspend skepticism and grant him this assumption your journey into the heart of darkness will be rewarded with a note of hope. Whether you are willing to extend to perpetrators a fraction of the sympathy that you extend to victims is a question only you will answer when you finish the book, but you will certainly appreciate the torment of men in war and war’s aftermath better than you do now.

What makes On Killing doubly significant is its extension of the experience of war to that of peace. Are children who are exposed to violent movies and video death-games more susceptible to murderous hostility? Are they stimulated to killing rage? Do they become more tolerant of mayhem?

Read On Killing and judge.

--Richard Curtis

Interview with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman by E-Reads

E-Reads: As you've grown older and wiser, have you modified your views about the nature of killing? About human nature?

DG: No, not really. I've expanded the model a little, and have placed that in my latest book, On Combat.

E-Reads: In your dealings with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, is there a material difference between the nature of their stress and the stresses suffered by Vietnam veterans?

DG: Today we are rotating units into combat (as opposed to individual replacements in Vietnam) and they are all wartime volunteers. They enlisted or reenlisted in time of war. This makes for a significant reduction in psychological trauma and incidence of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

E-Reads: You tour extensively. Who is your main audience? What are some of the most often-asked questions?

DG: Roughly 50% of my audiences are law enforcement. Another 30% are military units, and 20% educators.

The most commonly asked questions revolve around the incidence of PTSD in Iraq and Afghanistan. My best answer to that is in the 2nd edition to On Combat, which was released just this year. I've included a clip from On Combat (below) that addresses this issue.

"Sadly, it is not difficult to find people in the mental health community to support the thesis that anyone who kills, experiences combat, or witnesses violence (or any other fill-in-the-blank 'victim du jour') is doomed to lifelong PTSD and, consequently, needs lifelong mental health care. Too few mental health professionals communicate to their patients that 1) they can recover quickly from PTSD and that 2) they will become stronger from the experience. Yet that expectation must be there if there is to be hope of anything other than a lifetime of expensive counseling.

[ ... ]

PTSD is like being overweight. Many people carry around 10, 20, or 30 pounds of excess weight. Although it influences the individual every minute of every day, it might not be a big deal health wise. But for those people who are 500 pounds overweight, it will likely kill them any day now. There was a time when we could only identify people who had "500 pounds" of PTSD. Today we are better at spotting folks who carry lesser loads, 30, 40 or 50 pounds of PTSD.

I have read statistics that say 15 percent of our military is coming home with "some manifestation of psychological problems." Others claim it is 20 percent and still others report 30 percent. Well, depending on how you want to measure it, 30 percent of all college freshmen have some manifestation of psychological problems. Mostly what is being reported on today are people with low levels of PTSD (30, 40 or 50 pounds of PTSD) who in previous wars would not have been detected. We are getting damned good at identifying and treating PTSD and, when the treatment is done, most people are better for the experience.

PTSD is not like frostbite. Frostbite causes permanent damage to your body. If you get frostbite, for the rest of your life you will be more vulnerable to it. PTSD is not like that.

PTSD can be more like the flu. The flu can seriously kick your tail for a while. But once you shake it off, you probably are not going to get it again for the rest of the year. You have been inoculated. PTSD can kick your tail for a while (months and even years). But once you have dealt with it, next time it will take a lot more to knock you off your feet because you have been stress inoculated."

E-Reads: Do you feel your approach to killing has had a positive effect on our understanding of human behavior? Do you think human nature can be changed for the better?

DG: I don't think that our basic, underlying, innate nature can change much, but we can do a better job of warning and preparing people. And my books, On Killing and On Combat have proven themselves to be very valuable resources to help warn and prepare or GIs and their families.

On Killing and On Combat are both on the USMC Commandant's Required Reading list. (I think I'm the only author to have two books on the list.) Both books are also required reading at West Point and many other military and law enforcement academies. We have been at war for 6 years now, and we have learned a lot. All nonessential ideas and material have been jettisoned in the unforgiving 'acid test' of war. For these books to still be held up as required reading indicates that that they have something valuable and timeless to contribute, and it is a good feeling to be of service.

Perhaps most important of all, On Killing's final section (on media violence) has been supported with important new research. Sadly, that section has been validated by many tragic incidents of juvenile mass murders in the school.

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Lt. Col. Grossman continues the research that let to the writing of On Killing, does regular public speaking engagements on the subject and maintains a website, Killology Research Group, which constantly adds new information on the topic.