During the 1950s the Cold War was raging. We expected the Great Bear to invade us at any time. One day I saw something on television that really scared me. I can still see that screen: Bombers streaking toward me and the announcer saying something like... "...Russian bombers could be anywhere in the United States..." Well, the fact that the announcer was saying that they 'could' be anywhere, meant nothing to this ten-year-old boy. To me, they 'were' anywhere. For all I knew they were already in North Dakota. I was the only one in the room. Nobody else in my family saw that particular scene, or maybe the TV was simply advertising something. I don't know, but so began my long history of watching the Evening News every day to see what the Russians were doing.
I spent the first eight years of my education in a one-room country schoolhouse. One day a military jet went over and broke the sound barrier, causing a sonic boom, and one kid said, "God, don't drop a bomb!" This kid was three years younger than me, so, yes, we could add the possibility of war to our fears.
A few miles south was another one-room schoolhouse. We were the north school and they were the south school. We were a Republican neighborhood and they were a Democratic neighborhood...in other words, 'they' were communists. Remember, this time-period was also the McCarthy era, when communists were being drug out of their hidey-holes in droves, or so they say. More than once I asked my parents something like "...are my friends down in the south school really communists?" Their answer: "That's what people say."
What 'people' they were talking about I don't know.
As I grew older most of my fears began to dissipate. At seventeen, in 1962, I enlisted in the United States Navy (also well covered in my memoirs) and ended up in the submarine service. During my four-year hitch and two six-month Western Pacific cruises, the only Russian ships I saw were the so-called Russian trawlers (according to us those ships were rigged with spy-electronics, not fishing gear, and Russia was now the Soviet Union.)
By the 1980s, with two Strategic Air Command (SAC) air force bases, each including 300 Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos and I don't know how many B52 Bombers, North Dakota had achieved what all the kids on the block wanted: Number Three Nuclear Power in the world. And all through my twenties, thirties and forties I was definitely a war hawk, so the 'premise' for a novel was born. But as I began to research nuclear war--and the horrors of such--my attitude began to change, which may have affected the development of the main character, Kirby Yates. He did not become a super hero, but quite the opposite, just a regular guy who got caught up in events and had no choice but to deal with them as they arose, but not in a super hero kind of way. In fact, four of my Amazon reviewers are quite put off by, as they described him (weakling, whiney, crybaby.) Other reviewers saw him quite differently. My favorite review appears at the end of this post. All reviews are available to read at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S
For nearly two years I lived and worked at Grand Forks, North Dakota, at the time home to one of the SAC bases (today the base has lost it's nuclear status and pursues other services for the air force.) But there is where I worked on researching and writing nuclear war novel. One night I went to a 'peace' meeting, and personally witnessed the documentary that became Chapter 3 "Nuclear Sanity."
The important thing, while I was there, where "Winter in July" was born, the city of Grand Forks was definitely within the radius of Ground Zero. At night I would have my radio on (right next to my bed) and would listen to music before going to sleep. One night I forgot to turn it off and was awakened by...what? A siren? I didn't know, but the hum/whine, however I can describe it, just kept on and on, or so it seemed. So, I decided This is it: Vaporization is going to happen in the next milisecond.
But it didn't happen. So what was the sound that woke me? A guitar, the end of a very great sound by the artist, Prince. I've always liked that song, especially that ending. If Winter in July is ever made into a movie, that song has to be a part of it.
What appears on the cover is a scene we hope never to see....
5-Star Review
Buy! -- an unusual, introspective take on the
apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic tale, May 5,
2012
By Kurt Stallings "Kurt Stallings --
Author, Law... (Fort Worth , Texas
(REAL NAME)
(REAL NAME)
Kirby Yates lives in a
part of the country where there are almost as many nuclear missiles as there
are people. The small little town he calls home is filled with lonely people
making their way through silent lives. They would be mere numbers waiting to be
dumped onto a casualty list if it wasn't for the fact that their exact location
is just beyond the range of total destruction by any enemy missiles aimed at
the American bases a short drive across the prairie. Even so, Yates would be
nothing among them in the eyes of planners, but for the fact that he happens to
have a combination of basic military experience, a quiet competence for
planting and managing landscapes, and a bit more intelligence than most --
common enough throughout the world, but rare in that particular spot. He's
chosen to prepare for and participate in any nuclear exchange without being
informed of the fact until it's too late to quit, although he is bright enough
to realize it before. Ironically, he realizes, he is preparing the stage for
the tragedy that has given him nightmares since discovering a secret stash of
materials in his grandfather's house. His artist's vision, which he keeps
hidden from others, makes his sense of what may be coming only more vivid.
The author achieves something rare, if not indeed unique, with a work of fiction that not only broadens the reach of its particular sub-genre but doubles as a commentary on that sub-genre in itself. Certainly, this is the first of the A/PA novels I've read that explores the reason I am compelled to read so many. The protagonist grew up with the same obsessive sense of impending nuclear doom that vested in so many of us at a certain age, thanks to countless drills at school, those ridiculous films in class, and any number of black-and-white movies on TV. While some reviewers here are put off by Kirby Yates' initial, relative immaturity -- brilliantly and incisively detailed for him halfway through by a woman explaining why they can not be together -- readers more accustomed to novels that aren't purely action-driven will enjoy following his maturation, complete at the end of the book.
I'm not knocking action books, or those who enjoy them, I'm simply making the distinction so you can choose whether you personally might enjoy the book or not. I like action books; I also like this one. This is a book about a man, not a war, albeit a man preparing for the most terrifying of wars; and it's a book about a real man, not a caricature.
I recommend BUY as someone who enjoyed the tension as the subtle shifts in his relationships, always driven by an artist's appreciation for the insanity of nuclear war, was also balanced by an appreciation for the need for "adults" (as Yates puts it in his musings) who deal with insanity as something that is never going away. The struggle to achieve some sort of mature balance within himself as between those two impulses are what drive his decisions throughout the book. The ending is so satisfying because he finds that balance under the most surprising of circumstances -- or perhaps the only situation in which he might have stumbled onto it. In any event, it's his decisive action that wins him his "adulthood," and brings the security he's always sought to himself and those for whom he cares.
Biography
James W. Nelson was born in a farmhouse in eastern North Dakota in 1944. Some doctors made house calls back in those days. He remembers kerosene lamps, bathing in a large galvanized tub, and their phone number was a long ring followed by four short ones, and everybody else in the neighborhood could rubberneck. (Imagine that today!)
He was living in that same house on the land originally homesteaded by his great grandfather, when a savage tornado hit in 1955 and destroyed everything. They rebuilt and his family remained until the early nineteen-seventies when diversified farming began changing to industrial agribusiness (not exactly a good thing.) He spent four years in the US Navy, worked many jobs and finally has settled on a few acres exactly two and one half miles straight west of the original farmstead, ironically likely the very spot where the 1955 tornado first struck, which sometimes gives him a spooky feeling.
James has been telling stories most of his life. Some of his first memories happened during recess in a one-room country schoolhouse near Walcott , ND
Books
by James W. Nelson
(All
books digital downloads are $0.99)
(Paperbacks
vary in price)
From the author: (Subject
matter varies greatly in these books, from war to sex and romance to humor to
horror to fantasy to science fiction to adventure, Etc., so please don’t read
one book and think another one will be similar.)
Novels
Winter in July (65,500 words)
(nuclear war drama) (the doomsday clock is ticking; it will reach midnight )
Callipygia (66,100 words)
(romantic drama) (the Utopian world of Callipygia…just a legend?) (love, sex,
violence) Callipygia is a place, or maybe just a state of mind, for if you go
there, and partake, you will become changed…forever.
Experiments (82,500 words)
(medical mystery drama) (pharmacological research gone berserk)
Daughters (40,200 words)
(the heartbreak of human trafficking)
Boat Sailors (29,700 words)
(Vietnam War action by fleet submarines)
The Bellwether (229,000
words)(economic & environmental meltdown) (the mother of all disasters)
(love, sex, violence, drama, adventure)
The Light at the End of the
Tunnel (68,600 words) (one theory of reincarnation) (horror, crime, drama)
Short Stories
Strange & Weird Stories
(43,500 words) (the unknown: as close as beside you)
A Collection of Short
Contemporary Stories (48,200) (Stories about people just like you.)
Nonfiction
Dying to Live (58,400 words)
(autobiography) (the life & times of Jimmy Nelson)
Thanks for reading
Contact
nelsonjamesw@hotmail.com email
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S Author page at Amazon
http://morningshinestories.com Website
http://morninginapril.blogspot.com Blog
https://www.facebook.com/#!/ Facebook
http://subron7.hubpages.com/ HubPages
Feel free to contact me. (Response is not guaranteed)
(The world is full of psychos and wackos)
A reminder for when you go to Amazon to read digital
books, mine and many other authors: Amazon has a free APP download that allows
you to read your book on any electronic device, including PC, Mac, iPad,
iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.
Occasionally I list one of my books as free for a day, sometimes more than a day. Look for
those announcements on my blog, HubPages, Twitter, and Facebook
Starting at midnight, Thursday, December 20, 2012, Winter in July will be a free download for 24 hours. After that $0.99, and can be borrowed anytime with a Kindle Prime Membership.
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