From Letters to Novel

I come from a family who still writes letters—handwritten with envelopes and stamps and delivered by the postal service. While we don’t eschew email, it’s lovely to open the mailbox, recognize personal handwriting, and tear open the envelope.

When Matt, my husband, was fighting in Iraq, we wrote letters—and emailed, of course. It was our only communication for fifteen months minus seven very short phone calls. And while most Americans had cell phones in 2006, the 2BCT (2^nd Brigade Combat Team) was not allowed to bring personal phones, as they could prove very dangerous on several levels.

Someday, I’ll give Molly, our daughter, the letters we wrote so she can read about the events, the love, and the turmoil her parents faced during wartime. Perhaps I had—and have—an irrational fear that our personal histories will be erased: email thrown in the trash icon at the bottom of our screens and deleted into cyber oblivion. It will be forged and written by only a few people, who will take a narrow lens to the grand and complicated events faced by people in a post 9-11 world.

I envision it as looking out at the world through a door peephole. How many of you have unearthed your grandfather or grandmother’s letters offering a vivid picture of life during their time? Can you imagine a world without Anne Frank’s “The Diary of A Young Girl”, Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”, Pearl S. Bucks “The Good Earth” or Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita In Tehran”? And while I certainly would never place “The Immortals” in the same category as these amazing books, I would offer that “The Immortals” also gives the reader a glimpse into one family’s life pre and during wartime.

Galvanized by my own great-grandparents trans-continental letters during the world wars, and scant supply of women’s literature from other authors about Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, I decided to jot down the conceit of my time as a war wife in a journal. It was my journal and our letters that roused me to create Calli, Luke, Audrey, The Divas, the denizens of Sackets Harbor, and all the other beloved characters in the “The Immortals”.

Less than one-percent of the American population served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom from October 2001 – present day, compared with the more than twelve percent during World War II. It was during these current wars that wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, sat anxiously back here on the home front while their brave family members were sent to war to face a new type of enemy while most of America, fortunately, was able to continue life uninterrupted.

For most of our friends and family, we were their only real connection to the war. Although this is a work of fiction, I drew much of my inspiration from actual events that occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, and here at home from 2005-2007.

 

People have often heard me say that I wouldn’t wish the deployment of 2006-2007 on my worst enemy, but it was the best thing that happened to me. Due in large part to the people I met: wives and mothers of other soldiers at Fort Drum, the generous people of Sackets Harbor, and old family friends in The Thousand Islands, I found a courage I didn’t know I had and a fundamental connectedness to my own life.

Living life in limbo—as I did for far too long—not moving forward, is debilitating. Viktor Frankl wrote, “What is to give light must endure burning.” I am hopeful, that for even one woman, one reader, “The Immortals” is engaging, insightful, and helpful in initiating her to take a step—even a small step—towards living an animated life, a chance to live her life with all her passion, fear, and longing. If I accomplished this, then I will feel grateful.

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Tori Eversmann, wife of retired First Sergeant Matt Eversmann, the soldier who inspired the lead character in the book and movie Black Hawk Down, lives in West Palm Beach with their daughter, two black Labradors – Maybellene and Pamuk, and two cats – Genghis and Gatto.

Find out more about her on her website http://torieversmann.com/

Follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/torieversmann

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Publishing