LOS ANGELES (WPG) – Just in time for the U.S. Senate declared “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day” slated for March 30, Warriors Publishing Group announces the release of a powerful new novel that will take readers on an emotional and insightful tour of duty in America’s longest and most-controversial war. “River Of Perfumes,” a debut effort by three-tour Vietnam Veteran Michael Stokey, deals with aspects of the war in Vietnam that have only rarely or tangentially been touched on by other books about the war that cost more than 58,000 killed and sent 300,000 home wounded in action in some of the most brutal and exhausting combat in American military history.
Stokey’s novel focuses on the strange mission and unconventional methods of Marine Corps Combat Correspondents, a small band of military journalists who covered major battles from the foxhole perspective and wrote the little “feel good” stories for hometown newspapers that civilian correspondents scorned and grunts loved for the rare moments in the spotlight that the poor, bloody infantry so richly deserved and so rarely got. Stokey was one of those Combat Correspondents, emerging from three years in Southeast Asia decorated for valor and for wounds suffered in combat. He knows the subject and provides truly fascinating glimpses into the deadly, terrifying business of small unit operations that were the lifeblood of American combat operations in Vietnam.
“River Of Perfumes” gets its title from the body of water that bisected the city of Hue in northern South Vietnam and was the scene of brutal house-to-house, often hand-to-hand combat during the Tet Offensive staged by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in 1968. By most reckonings, Hue was the longest and bloodiest battle of that seminal campaign fought by Marines who had little training for and even less experience with urban combat. It was the Big Story of the day and Marine Combat Correspondents experienced every aspect of the fighting from the initial forays into the major enemy redoubts on the south side of the Perfume River to the final, controversial assault on The Citadel on the north side of Hue where Marine infantry was forced to struggle for toeholds along the thick walls surrounding the palaces of the ancient Vietnamese emperors. Stokey and his fellow Marine Correspondents were there, sometimes reporting but mostly fighting alongside the grunts that needed every rifle in action against a stubborn foe determined to die in place rather than surrender.
“This is a blockbuster first novel,” said Captain Dale Dye, USMC (Ret.), who fought in Hue, “I can’t claim to have read all the works done on Vietnam but I’ve certainly absorbed a bunch of them and I’ve never read anything that brings it all back like River of Perfumes.” Stokey’s characters are truthfully drawn – warts and all – by a discriminating writer with a keen eye for nuance. “I knew those guys,” Dye continued, “and I know Mike has brought them to life in a really brilliant fashion. If I had to recommend something people might do to say Welcome Home to Vietnam Veterans this March, I’d say get River of Perfumes and read it.”
“River of Perfumes,” by Michael Stokey is available now through Warriors Publishing Group at www.warriorspublishing.com . It’s also available in electronic versions. Review copies are available on request at Warriors Publishing Group, 16129 Tupper St, North Hills, CA 91343, 818/349-6640, and info@warriorspublishing.com.
