RAY GLEASON

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Published by: Unlimited Publishing
Release Date: September 16, 2014
ISBN13: 978-1588321459

 
Synopsis

The Violent Season Trilogy is a re-release in three installments of Ray Gleason’s novel, The Violent Season, now out of print. The trilogy relates the stories of three young men and their families during the Vietnam war. The books are a “coming of age” saga that begin in the lush valleys of the Hudson River and in the streets of New York city to provide an insightful perspective of youth and innocence plunged into the crucible of war. The narrative presents a depiction of good people – American and Vietnamese – caught up in grim, unthinkable circumstances. The trilogy is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and its ability to triumph over the horror and tragedy of war.

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Praise

Ray Gleason has written a literary novel about the Vietnam War that is the finest war novel I've read in a while. I strongly recommend you purchase as a companion "The Devil's Dictionary", a book also written by Gleason that decodes the acronyms sprinkled throughout the book. In this work, Gleason quotes liberally French poetry and his prose evokes previous war literature from the Iliad and Beowolf to The Last of the Mohicans and The Naked and the Dead. The novel is very ambitious in scale and breadth of subject matter; the writing is spare and economical like Hemingway but the length of the novel is more like Tolstoy. In the end, the novel is more like a coming of age book that could have had a variety of plot engines but the Vietnam War serves very well. I very much liked its realism as contrasted with other surrealist or farcical Vietnam works like Going After Cacciato or Namarama, both of which I liked. There is plenty of action but no glory. An excellent work and an even better bargain.

 

As a woman in her late thirties, I was part of the generation that was lucky enough to have been born after the Vietnam war. Though my father served during the war, we never spoke much about his experience. In school, I learned about the war in history classes, but none of this compared to the emotional closeness and rawness that I felt when reading 'The Violent Season' by Ray Gleason. Superbly written, this book transports the reader to 'Nam' with the perfect balance of soul-wrenching honesty and soul-feeding beauty. I thank the author for his bravery and courage, not only in Nam, but in fighting the psychological demons born from the war experience. This book is a gift to all generations, a handbook and good friend for anyone wishing to learn more about the war, human nature, and love.

 

This novel is a magnificent tribute to the men and women who served in the military during that period. I highly recommend it.

 

I am not a big fan of war movies or books but I love history and this book strikes a perfect balance between drama, storytelling, emotion and facts. The author says the book is fiction but as you read it, there seems to be too much emotion between the lines for it to be fiction. And yet some of the incidents are so out of this world, you tell yourself these are the fiction bits. So many times throughout reading this books, all I could think of was Tom Hanks. The story and the way it is told back to you seems to be a cross between Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump. Awkward and yet powerful enough that you will never forget this story once it has touched you. I don't think this was an easy book to write but male or female, something in this book will capture your attention. Kudos to the writer for sharing his story. Would I recommend this read? Oh yes, definitely.

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Voici que vient l'été la saison violente
Et ma jeunesse est morte ainsi que le printemps

Now summer arrives the violent season
And my youth is as dead as the spring

Apollinaire, La Jolie Rousse