Book summary:
New York City, 1943. War is raging in Europe
and the Pacific, while Jack Dalton is stuck attending Dutch
Masters Day School. What Jack really wants is to enlist in
the army, to fight...
Everything changes when Coco, Jack's "fiancee," throws him
over for one of his classmates. Jack sees red and does
something drastic. Then he runs away. Hiding out in a nearby
park, Jack joins ranks with a group of vagrants and is soon
under the sway of a man called the Leader, an ex-convict who
is as articulate and charismatic as he is dangerous. The
Leader turns Jack's world upside down. To put things right,
Jack must prove himself a braver soldier than he ever
imagined.
Excerpt:
Mauricette told Harriet Godwin I was the pig of the class. I
had treated her like garbage. Mauricette wouldn't answer my phone
calls. She wouldn't read the notes I dropped inside her desk. But
Arturo Fink kept reminding her who she was. “Fiancée,” he said.
“Jack’s fiancée.”
I promised myself I wouldn't write anymore compositions, but how
could I graduate from Dr. Franklin's class and join General
MacArthur?
It felt lonely without a fiancée.
Mauricette began seeing Barnaby Rosenstock after school. They were
holding hands and having chocolate malteds at the Sugar Bowl on
Seventy-ninth Street. Fat Arturo was eating two ice-cream sodas.
The Sugar Bowl is our hangout. It’s the official candy store of
Dutch Masters Day School. I didn’t have money for ice-cream sodas.
I didn’t have money for malteds. I'd buy a Hershey bar or some
Chuckles once a week. I'd peek at the comic book rack and wonder
what was happening to Captain Marvel or the Sub-Mariner. Marvel
and the Sub-Mariner were already at war, fighting Japs. And when
Mauricette was still my fiancée, I'd sit with her over a glass of
water and treat her to some candy whenever I could. But now she
was sucking malteds with Barnaby Rosenstock. I could hear her from
my corner, next to the comic book rack.
“Oh, Jack Dalton,” she said. “He has a wild imagination. He likes
to fling words around. He thinks half the school is going to marry
him.”
She didn’t have to shame me in front of her friends. Arturo was
laughing into his fat cheeks. Barnaby had a chocolate rainbow on
his lips. I didn’t even bother with the comic books. Marvel would
have to fight the Japs without me. I walked home.
Mama was at the factory. She makes parachutes. Sometimes she’d
bring home a little piece of silk left over from one of the
chutes. That's how I get my handkerchiefs. Not even Arturo with
all his father’s money has a handkerchief of genuine silk. But
handkerchiefs couldn’t make me feel good. Silk is only silk. I
wondered about the American fliers who had their planes shot down
and had to fall into the dark wearing some of that silk.
I couldn’t concentrate on my homework. It didn't seem important
when you considered all the Japs and Germans out there. I hope
General MacArthur takes me with him to Bataan. I’m not asking for
a Purple Heart. I'm only asking to kill Japs. And if I have to
die, I want to die near my dad...
Mama came home at seven. The streets from my window looked so
dark, I thought the world had gone gray. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t
mind going to school after midnight.
“Darling,” Mama said, “what’s wrong?”
I couldn't tell her how I lost a fiancée, because she would have
figured I was insane.
“Mama, I’m blue...that's all.”
“You’re still dreaming of the Army, aren’t you? We'll have dinner
and listen to the radio, my little blue boy.”
We had soup and bread and boiled potatoes and peas out of a can.
It’s not Mama’s fault if meat is rationed and sugar is rationed.
No one can inherit ration stamps, not even the President or
Arturo’s dad.
We listened to Jack Benny. He played the violin and talked about
the Japs. Mama laughed, because Jack Benny is the biggest miser in
the world. He would never spend a nickel. But he told everybody to
buy war bonds.
“What about you, Mr. Benny?”
Mama told me it was time for bed.
I put on my pajamas. But I didn't feel like sleeping. I dialed
Mauricette’s number and let the telephone ring. Somebody picked up
the phone.
“It’s me,” I said. “Jack Dalton. Your former fiancé. Coco, are you
there? I wanted to—”
Mauricette hung up. And I wondered who was lonelier. The dead
cowboys on Bataan, or young Jack Dalton.
Buy Back To Bataan @ Kindle, Nook, iBookstore, Smashwords, Google & PDF.
Jerome Charyn's Bio:
Jerome Charyn (born May 13, 1937) is
an award-winning American author. With nearly 50 published
works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an
inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American
life. Michael Chabon calls him “one of the most important
writers in American literature.”
New York Newsday hailed Charyn as “a contemporary
American Balzac,” and the Los Angeles Times described
him as “absolutely unique among American writers.”
Since 1964, he has published 30 novels, three memoirs, eight
graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays and
works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York
Times Book of the Year. Charyn has been a finalist for the
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been named
Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.
Charyn lives in Paris and New York City.
Interview with Jerome Charyn
1. What are your thoughts on the explosion of popularity concerning the YA
genre?
I think it might very well be that it started with Harry Potter, that young adult
writers are trying to tell good stories and adults have moved into that kind of dream.
2. You are the master of writing across a realm of different genres, what excites
you about connecting with different audiences?
I’m not so sure that these are different audiences, I think we all love stories, whether
we’re children or great-grandfathers and when you move from genre to genre you are still
telling a story like Scheherazade and the king is always waiting for the next tale.
3. Your writing is so precise, yet evocative - how do you work at crafting your
unique style of prose?
Everything begins and ends with the word, with the music of the sentence and as
Tolstoy once said, “I’m always composing.”
4. Being a published author for nearly 50 years, what do you think of eBooks?
I think that this is a kind of logical step as we move from the internet into eBooks.
Publishing is changing even as we speak. I think there now will be a more
complicated dance between the eBook and the printed book, and as we’ve seen
recently, successes in eBooks allow the author to move into print.
5. What would be your advice to young people who aspire to a literary career?
It’s not worth the money – only write if you’re absolutely in love with it.
6. How much of your life is in Back to Bataan? How did you personally
experience New York during World War II?
I think so much of the source of my writing comes from my childhood, I grew
up during the War - so many of the terrors and the magic of certain films have
remained with me. And all of this appears in the character of Jack.
7. Your older brother was a detective. Did your experiences with him influence
the plot?
Not really, I think all writing is crime writing. And Back to Bataan is a crime novel
with a very original twist.
8. Why did you decide to include the fascination with the famous as a theme -
Gary Cooper, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc.?
These people were heroes to me as a child, particularly Eleanor Roosevelt, who was
one of the most extraordinary women who ever lived, and of course as a child I fell
in love with Gary Cooper’s face and with his very slow drawl, that seemed so exotic
to me.
9. Jack finds acclaim through his writing, yet feels guilty for exploiting other
people (Mrs. Fink). How does a writer starting out work to bridge this gap?
You’re always cannibalizing other people and writers when you start to write, so it’s
natural that Jack should be a young cannibal.
10. How important is the New York Times in your own life? Why did you decide
to make it a form of connection between Jack and the Leader?
As a child, I didn’t even know that the Times existed – I grew up in a neighborhood
without newspapers and books, so that when I first fell upon the New York Times, I
was very very greedy, and wanted to include it in Jack’s middle-class life.
Find Jerome Charyn @ Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads & his site.
Thanks to Tribute Books for allowing me to be a part of Back To Bataan's tour! Always a pleasure :)
