While I was watching last summer’s demonstrations after George Floyd’s murder, a young woman waved a sign that read, “I understand that I will never understand.” That young woman recognized that human circumstances vary widely and often depend on factors we cannot control. And she’s right. It’s virtually impossible to step into someone else’s shoes, particularly when decades and centuries of history have institutionalized patterns of thought and behavior.
As storytellers, however, it’s our job to imagine the effect of those circumstances and patterns on an individual. Or a family. Or a neighborhood, city, even a country. We write about the full range of human emotions, trying to illustrate how conflict, oppression, war, and abuse have marked people. We try to frame the story in a way that readers will understand and identify with. Whatever we choose to write about, we succeed only when we elicit an emotional response, a fundamental realization that no matter the time, setting, or situation, our readers “get it.”
That’s one of the reasons I wrote my first historical non-mystery, set during the Vietnam War or, if you’re Vietnamese, the American War. Why Vietnam fifty years later? Mostly because Americans still see the war through a strictly American lens: the draft, the anti-war movement, hippies, Agent Orange, Kent State, Nixon’s election, the Chicago Seven. But what about the Vietnamese people? What were the consequences of a decade of war on them? How did they deal with the loss of family members, homes, villages, their very way of life? After the Communists took control, what did they think of reeducation camps (if they remained in Vietnam) and possible execution? How did families on different sides of the conflict reunite? How do they feel about America today?
I tried to find out. I visited Vietnam. I researched the war before, during, and after. I interviewed a former North Vietnamese colonel in Hanoi and sought out former refugees and boat people in the U.S. I also worked with a Vietnamese editor to make sure the story rings true. And while I understand that I will never completely understand, the same holds true for every author who writes about another culture or time. We try to unearth and share the emotional truth of the characters’ journey, no matter who they are or what their struggles.
I hope you will indulge this writer’s attempt to do just that.