I'm very excited to interview Susan Vanhecke, co-author of ROCK 'N' ROLL SOLDIER: A MEMOIR, (HarperCollins) which has just been released. Here's the quote on it from Graham Nash: "A remarkable story about the transcendent power of music."
My sixteen year old son has been waiting to read this one. He's got the same black and white Fender guitar that's on the front of the book. It's one of seven guitars he owns, most of them bought with his own money. (He's been in a band with the same kids for the past five years. They just played at the chili cookoff, but they do local shows, too, where they sell tickets and put up posters and all that stuff that bands do.)
Here's my conversation with Susan:
Kathryn: Tell us about your book, Rock N Roll Soldier.
Susan: Rock 'N' Roll Soldier is a Vietnam War memoir for young adults that I co-wrote with veteran Dean Ellis Kohler. It's really an amazing story. In 1966, Dean was a year out of high school and had just landed a recording contract with his garage rock band, the Satellites. And then his draft notice arrived.
But even in Vietnam, fending off enemy ambushes and sweeping for snipers as a military policeman, Dean didn't give up his rock star dreams. He improvised some instruments and equipment, taught a few fellow MPs to play, and formed his own touring rock band right there in the combat zone. Ultimately, the band became a lifeline for Dean and the band, as well as the thousands of combat-weary troops they played for in increasingly dangerous terrain.
If you can believe it, Dean's band even recorded a single in the war zone, building a makeshift sound studio on a jungle mountainside. You can listen to the record, plus audio from some of the shows for the soldiers, at http://www.rocknrollsoldieramemoir.com/. Dean's also posted his film footage and photos from Vietnam there, as well. It makes reading the book a multi-media experience and really helps to bring the characters and situations alive.
Kathryn: How long did it take to write?
Susan: I first interviewed Dean nearly ten years ago for a newspaper article I was writing on '60s garage rock bands. When he told me about the band he'd formed in Vietnam, I thought his story would make a great book. So I put together a proposal and sample chapters and landed an agent who shopped it around to publishers of books for grown-ups. The editors' reactions were pretty unanimous – Dean's story was too "boy scout-ish," not enough blood and guts.
I was crushed because I knew it was an incredible story. But I put the proposal away and moved on to other projects. Dean's experience was always in the back of my head, though. When I started writing for children four years ago, I pulled the proposal back out, recast it as a YA, and started pitching it to children's publishers. Several editors were interested and HarperCollins acquired it in a pre-empt. So, really, the book had been in the works for almost a decade!
Kathryn: What was the ONE book you read that made you want to become a writer? How old were you when you read that book?
Susan: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. Just the sheer imagination of it, its humor – it made me realize that you could write stories about anything, even a ginormous piece of airborne fruit peopled with freaky but lovable mutated insects. And so I did write about anything and everything as a kid. Creative writing was my absolute, hands-down favorite subject in school.
Kathryn: How do you write? Do you have a routine?
Susan: I'd love, love, love to have a writing routine, but life just doesn't work out that way as a mom of two young children, wife of an oft-deployed Navy officer, and now owner of an active English Setter puppy. I have to work my writing life around my family life, which can definitely be a challenge. And I'm definitely not one of those pounding-the-keys-into-the-wee-hours authors – I can barely keep my eyes open past 10 p.m.! So I'll typically get a few solid, back-to-back hours of writing in every weekday while the kids are at school. If I'm up against a crazy deadline, the kids go to grandma's or hubby wangles some time off to babysit, if he's not out to sea.
Kathryn: If you could give your book to just one person to read, who would that person be?
Susan: A boy of about 16 who thinks he hates to read. He'll love Dean's story.
Kathryn: What is your most favorite line in your book?
Susan: After Dean returns home from Vietnam, a friend, also just back from the war, stops by. When a truck backfires outside, Dean's friend scrambles for cover under the living room sofa. As the friend stands up, totally embarrassed, Dean writes, "I told him about how when Mom asked me to help her in the yard that morning, I'd checked the flower beds for booby traps." To me, that one line captures just what an indelible impact the war had on these young men. There would be no such thing as normal, everyday life anymore – it would always be colored by what they saw and did in Vietnam.
Kathryn: What are you working on now?
Susan: I'm wrapping up a nonfiction for middle graders called Strike Up The Band: Amazing American Instrument Makers From Ragtime To Rock. It's a fun, photo-filled history of musical instrument companies Zildjian, Steinway, Martin, Conn, Ludwig, Hammond, Fender, and Moog that also touches on American history and various musical genres and artists. It was a blast to research and write; Boyds Mills Press is publishing it in fall, 2010.
Then I need to finish up my historical fiction for middle graders, The Girl In The Box. It's based on a true story of the Underground Railroad I stumbled across while doing some genealogical research. SCBWI kindly gave me a WIP grant for it – I want to do them proud.
Thank you very much, Susan. I wish you the best of luck with your new book.
