Part 1: Why now? – The Women by Kristin Hannah – Not a review, simply an inspiration

The following is intended to be the first of several posts under the title “The Women by Kristin Hannah – Not a review, just an inspiration.” These planned posts will be a series, similar in  presentation to the ones Richard Morris himself posted during the final weeks of his life when he nightly viewed the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick series on The Vietnam War, following up with a blog post the next day. He summarized the episode, described where he himself fit into this time frame, and included references to his Vietnam War satire protest novel Cologne No. 10 for Men and songs from his Skytroopers CD.  All the songs were written in 1967-1968 while serving with the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division (A-2-5) in the Central Highlands.  The one exception is his song “Counting Bodies in the Nam” which was written after returning home as part of Richard’s way of protesting the war as well as the government’s use of the body count to determine who was winning the war. Richard’s summaries of the episodes of the excellent Burns/Novick series would make a great introduction for those individuals just now becoming aware of the history of the American war in Vietnam and needing a brief update without watching the entire 18 hours.

Why now am I returning to posting on Richard’s website? After resisting reading The Women by Kristen Hannah for a long time (since I thought this would be a fluffy romance novel), I finally gave in and read it, discovering that the setting for the first part of this historical fiction novel is 1967-68 in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, where my husband was located during the first year of our marriage.  Many  descriptions and events in  this  novel rang  true  according  to  Richard’s  letters,  reel-to-reel  tape  recordings,  the  songs  that  he  wrote  during  that  year,  and  the  war  satire  protest  novel  that  he, over  the  next  forty  years, wrote, cut in half, revised, and self-published. Like Kristin Hannah, Richard had been advised that there was no market for Vietnam novels (early 1990s). Additionally, he was advised that first novels should not be as lengthy as his. To my recollection, before Richard’s slashes to his novel, it was probably more the length of the currently popular Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. According to the New York Times via the publisher, “Marlantes — a highly decorated Vietnam vet — spent 30 years writing this book. It was originally 1,600 pages long; now it is 600.”

It was disappointing to me to realize that, with the current  renewed interest in the Vietnam War, Richard’s contributions to writing about it could not be included. Since CD Baby no longer sells CDs, there was no way for Richard’s songs to be heard any longer, and even his own website has lost many of its links and photos over the years since his death. So Kristin Hannah’s novel The Women has been an inspiration to me to do something about that sad situation. My first accomplished goal is that Richard’s songs written during his time in Vietnam can now be heard on YouTube.

“The Women by Kristin Hannah – Not a review, simply an inspiration – Part 2 – The music of our lives” will be a post about Richard’s songs and how they may enhance your reading of The Women.

Any posts appearing on this website after author and singer-songwriter Richard Morris’s death in November of 2017 were written and posted by his wife, Barbara Morris.