Summary Of Something About Ann By J. Everett Prewitt

Thank you J. Everett Prewitt for writing Something About Ann: Stories of Love and Brotherhood so people like me who haven't experienced war, can know how it affected those who fought. These twelve short stories talk about black men who fought the war in Vietnam and Cambodia and the effects it had on them. The men lived a hard life before Vietnam, and these stories tell how each man adapts to civilian life after he returned from the war. I don't know if these stories were based on true experiences, but J. Everett Prewitt wrote them in such a way that I can believe they were true. This book could only have been written by someone who had experienced the war, the people, and the effects of having been there. It is painful to know and feel what these black men had to go through to survive life in Vietnam and then on the streets of America afterward.
Something About Ann, the first and longest story in this book, tells about a Vietnamese woman named Ly Trung Trac (her American name was Ann Minh Bourdain) who was trying to make a new life in a new country.
With a hardened warrior's heart, she still had the fight in her. She sought revenge against the enemy who had killed her fellow soldiers and had injured her in Cambodia. Even though Trung was married, she fell in love with a man who helped her through her sadness by sharing quiet times together. She found the enemy, but in the confusion, she didn't kill him; she ran away instead.
The author intertwined these twelve short stories together with a common thread; each of the main characters were war veterans of Vietnam or Cambodia. He often used a character or scene from a previous story and weaved a glimpse of them into his next story. I expected to see Ann (Trung) pop up somewhere in another story; perhaps she did anonymously. He brought the stories together in unusual ways, which I enjoyed. It was like reading twelve different stories that were really only fragments of one story of how people's paths cross in
life.
I like that the author used morals, or moral-like phrases in each of his stories. For example, in the story, The Education of Xavier Warfield, old man Reynolds said, "You can't change what's already happened. All you can do is learn from it." And also, in A Good Life, Leroy Casper says, "All I can promise is that I'll try."
In most of these stories, a lesson is being learned by the main character. Prolific hostility, weaponry, and beautiful women were a byproduct of these veterans. They stuck together, helped each other out, and watched each other's backs which got them through the situations that arose around them. In the story Lucky, Lucky wasn't paying close attention, and he learned his lesson too late. However, that in itself is a lesson learned, too. I'm glad the story, A Good Day to Be a Man, was included in this series. It talks about a basketball game gone bad with guns, gangs, and money involved. Because of the recognition of one man as a war hero, things turned out right. Many great lessons are learned in this story alone.
In the story, With One Exception, Erving Robinson shows how war buddies stick together. In his training, "no man left behind" had been drilled into his head. He came beside Conrad, a war veteran he had just met, and helped him through a tough time in his life. Camaraderie is there among war veterans, even though they don't talk about the war. It's just too painful; they'd rather forget about it. The author ended the series of stories with Slow Songs. It was a nice way to memorialize the veterans of the foreign wars. Raymond Williams and Vince Valentine used to listen to jazz players of the era in Hong Kong. While stationed at Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, they were ambushed, and Valentine didn't make it. Williams said, to get peaceful again, "I still play the slow songs — for my fellow soldiers, for Valentine."
In a couple of the stories, I feel that the author used too many characters that had nothing to do with the story which caused some confusion. Also, not being used to hearing the kind of lingo that was used by the people in these stories, I had to guess as to the meaning of some of the words, such as, "pop a cap", "You want a piece?", and "...it was down enough for Holland." This was fine, because it made it more interesting. I am sure there are people out there who understand these kind of phrases.
The only thing that I disliked about this book was the cussing. I am aware that the author used cussing to show personality and character of the person who was talking, but it is offensive me. Generally I will not read a book if I know it has a lot of cussing in it. I can enjoy a story much more without it being included. However, the author did not over use it to the point where it ruined the story for me.
I'm glad that J. Everett Prewitt wrote this book. I believe there should be more books written about foreign wars. My father-in-law lived through it, but would never talk about it. It is a hard subject for those who experienced it. We, the American people, need to hear the truths that went on in Vietnam, Cambodia, and other foreign wars.
There were a few grammatical and punctuation errors that I found throughout the stories. Some of the grammar was questionable since his characters talk street talk, and I'm not familiar with that form of wordage. For example, "Please to meet you, sir." Do they talk like that or should I say that he is missing the d in the word pleased? There were some sentences with missing words such as, "Let me know you're ready." It should say, "Let me know when you're ready." There were other words with missing letters, some missing quotation marks, and only one spelling error. I believe this book is an exceptional book and deserves four stars, but because of the many grammatical errors, I have to give this book a 3 out of 4 stars. I recommend this book to be read by anyone interested in the experiences that veterans go through on a daily basis, especially the black men from the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia.