Comments on: Are you Ready for Vietnam-era Romance?

By: Jane A

Jane A — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:34:12 +0000

I just picked up a freebie on Amazon by Laurie Kellogg called The Memory of You. I was intrigued because it looks like it was just published but it is set during the Vietnam War. The hero was held as a POW for six years and his wife has been told he was killed. He comes home to find out that his wife is engaged to be married. I am very interested to read it and see if it feels “dated” to that period, even though it was written in 2012.

The Vietnam era doesn’t feel historical to me because I remember it, but since it was about 50 years ago the argument could be made that it is!

By: Maggie AAR

Maggie AAR — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 13:14:08 +0000

Elist Title Till The End of Time is about a heroine who is stationed at an evac hospital in Vietnam and meets an old friend there.
It takes place in 1968. Good book.

By: Admin AAR

Admin AAR — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 02:41:13 +0000

I think I would be interested for sure. Maybe not ten years ago. Vietnam Era was my parents’ era – they married in 1965. My father-in-law in a Vietnam Vet. When I was in my twenties/thirties I might have found that weird. Now, I’m interested. I was born in 1970, and I was too young to remember Vietnam when it was happening, though I became very interested when I was in high school and they started making so many movies about it (Platoon, etc).

Though it isn’t a romance (and it ends sadly), there are very romantic elements to 11/22/63 by Stephen King. One of the best books I read last year.

Blythe

By: MD

MD — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:12:49 +0000

We get romances that talk about Napoleonic wars, and these came with plenty of their own horror. And also corn laws, riots etc. – it’s not necessarily common, but there are books where these difficult topics show up, and they work just fine. So why wouldn’t Vietnam War work? It was ugly, and sad, but romance deals with love and redemption, and I am sure there was that.

By: karen

karen — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:28:23 +0000

Try Messages From Nam by Danielle Steele. I read it last year and could hardly put it down.

By: delia

delia — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:45:38 +0000

Any book set in the 1960s/1970s has always been “historical” to me for two reasons: a) I was born in 1981 and b) my grandfather served two tours in Vietnam. Most of my classmates’ grandfathers either served in World War II or Korea so I got lots of raised eyebrows when I said my grandfather served in Vietnam.

I would like to read more books set during that period. I remember reading some early Linda Howard (MacKenzie’s Mountain maybe?) and Diana Palmer (maybe?) where the hero had served in Vietnam. I’ve also seen some recent self-pub books (Laurie Kellogg’s The Memory of You come to mind) that deal with that time period. I haven’t read any of them but I’m intrigued enough by the time period to try some over Christmas break.

Will this time period be added to the special titles list on AAR?

By: Virginia DeMarce

Virginia DeMarce — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:41:39 +0000

When I was expecting my second son in 1970, the administration at the college where I was teaching excavated a pre-WWI law that was still in the Missouri code that forbade the employment of women after the 4th month of pregnancy (they hadn’t known about it two years earlier when I was pregnant the first time). I had to petition the Missouri Supreme Court to obtain a ruling that a law designed to prevent the abuse of factory workers in sweat shops wasn’t really relevant to women in a professional situation.

The law has since been removed from the books.

When my mother was in her twenties, women were fired as soon as they married. There was no law against it at all. She said that many girls who married, but needed their jobs, did not announce it, had no parties or celebrations, and wore their rings on a chain underneath their clothes.

My grandmother was 51 the year women got the right to vote.

From the perspective of people who lived through the times, women are considerably farther ahead.

By: Virginia DeMarce

Virginia DeMarce — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:36:31 +0000

I started teaching at Northwest Missouri State College in the fall of 1965, so was on the grade-giving end of the situation with its attendant responsibilities. That was angst. There were plenty of “contemporaries” being written at the time, so there’s no real reason for someone interested in the era to wait for someone to write a “historical” 45 or 50 years after the fact.

By: Farmwifetwo

Farmwifetwo — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:38:11 +0000

Isn’t it? 15yrs ago I went back and took accounting. During a co-op placement I had to teach DOS to another student. I’d only been out of Univ 5 yrs or so. Once computers became common the changes in electronics has been extremely fast.

By: Mary Beth

Mary Beth — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:20:43 +0000

You may be correct – the rules have simply changed, however it feels to me like things are different. I think that young women today are more likely to explore their sexuality and not feel the guilt and anxiety that I remember from the 1960′s. I also think that young women today are more comfortable discussing their sexuality both with their friends and their partners. I look at my nieces and my son’s female friends and I think how different their experiences are than mine. Maybe, this is a reflection of my own conflicts, but I don’t think so, things are different now.