The Long Road to Publication
A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts and 10 Air Medals. He lives in rural Washington State. Matterhorn is his first novel.
You started Matterhorn in the 1970s. How did you finally find a publisher? This seems like an act of bravery, to keep going for 35 years.
Yes, it did take a long time--I started it on a typewriter! I failed to get it published when I first tried, in 1977. No one would read it, no one was interested--we had lost an unpopular war.
In the mid-'80s, I had been working on it all along, and had read all the books about query letters and finding an agent; still, no one would read it, and this time I was told that Hollywood had already "done it."
In the '90s, I was told to cut it in half and switch the story to the Gulf War. In the '00s--you can see where this is going--I was told to cut it in half and switch it to Afghanistan.
A few years ago, I gave the manuscript to a friend to read, who told Tom Farber at El León Literary Arts, a nonprofit publisher in Berkeley, about it. Tom told him to have me send it to his editor, Kit Duane. When my friend called and told me, I said, "You want me to spend $50 to copy and send a book about Marines in Vietnam to a woman who lives in Berkeley?!" But Kit loved it, she couldn't put it down, and I got the deal with El León: a print run of 1,200 copies and 120 copies for myself. That was my pay. That, and some truly wonderful and encouraging blurbs. One in particular, by Jon Stallworthy, a great poet and scholar and the editor of The Oxford Book of War Poetry, would have been sufficient to allow me to die knowing that at least he said I could write.
Then my wife suggested that El León submit Matterhorn to some contests, saying, "At least they'll have to read it." It went to Barnes & Noble, where Jill Lamar, the head of the Discover Great New Writers program, gave it to Sessalee Hensley. Sessalee knew if they chose Matterhorn, they'd overwhelm El León with the print run they required, so she sent it to several publishers, including Morgan Entrekin, who read it and loved it. Morgan and Tom cut a deal two weeks before El León's pub date, May 2009, and here we are, after 35 years.
I have to say, it was women who rescued this book from obscurity. So many women were early readers, and so many women love the book. One of the best blurbs for Matterhorn is from a woman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Christina Robb. I think the intense relationships appeal to women readers, and they are curious about not only Vietnam but about combat in general. I've had several women call me or e-mail me with statements like, "Until I read your novel, I never understood why my brother is all by himself up in Alaska" or "why my husband behaves as he does." This is very gratifying to me.
What is also very gratifying is the response and support from independent booksellers. Grove immediately started receiving positive e-mails from them on the Grove ARCs, and e-mails, blogs and twitters started going around the independent community. Last year in April, Annie Bloom's in Portland ordered more than 100 of the original El León version and they sold out. It's encouraging to have these book lovers excited about the novel.
Why did you write it? What kept you going?
When I got back from the war, I felt compelled to write and wrote another novel before Matterhorn, a 1,700-page book that was crap, just spewing vitriol. At the time, I had been assigned to the Pentagon, and one day I was delivering some papers to the White House. Across the street, people were waving Viet Cong flags and chanting obscenities at me. I stood there stunned. I thought, you don't know who I am. You don't know my life circumstances. This was a time when nightclubs in D.C. had signs saying "No servicemen allowed."
In college, before I went to Vietnam, I started dating a girl. Early on, we were sitting on the steps below her apartment, and I told her that I was in the Marine reserves. She looked at me with horror and ran up the stairs.
When I was 30, I read Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty. She taught me the value of literature: when I got inside the wedding planner's head, I understood how important every detail of the event was. There is no way I could have done that except through literature. With my novel, I am trying to reach across that street and up the stairs. I want to let people get out of their own skins and into someone else's. That's how we all become bigger people.
How has the book changed over three decades of writing and revision?
If it had been published in 1977, it would be half the book it is today, and I don't mean in length. Originally I danced around the racial issues. After reaching a certain age, I developed more empathy for 19-year-olds with high testosterone and racial divisions. I also had more self-confidence in my ability to get into other heads. I could step back and see that the military is where trust and working together happened. Truman may have passed a law to integrate the military, but Vietnam is where true integration took place.
I also read a lot about the mythology of war. I read the psychologist C.G. Jung whose concept of a shadow self (we're capable of violence but don't want to face it) and how we unconsciously project that shadow self onto other people was very important. We need to understand that about ourselves. The main character, Mellas, is undergoing the hero's journey; he's also learning compassion. In my writing, that could only come after reflection and maturity.
You were a lieutenant in Vietnam. What did you do before Vietnam and after?
I joined the reserves when I was 18, got out when I was 24, and was on active duty for three years. I was at Yale when I got a Rhodes scholarship, so I asked the Marines if I could delay active duty for two years in order to go to Oxford. They agreed. But while I was at Oxford, my friends from training were shipping out, kids from my Oregon hometown were dying in Vietnam. I felt I was hiding behind privilege. I decided that if I had any moral fiber at all, I had to leave Oxford and either go to Vietnam or to Sweden. I really didn't know what I wanted to do, so I took off for North Africa. I was basically a mess. Finally I made a decision and showed up at a naval base in Morocco, dressed in a djellabah and yellow leather slippers, saying I was a Marine 2nd Lieutenant and wanted to go on active duty. Two weeks later I was at Quantico.
After the Marines, I got married and started a family. Braces and tap-dancing lessons meant I had to earn a living, so I worked as a consultant for energy companies, traveling all over the world--it was a high adrenaline job, and I thought a few isolated panic attacks just came with the high-stakes work. But in the '90s, I attended a mental health fair and talked to someone about my stress, anger, anxiety and what could only be described as crazy, high-risk behavior. He listened and simply asked, "Were you ever in a war?" At that, I started crying, really crying, and was immediately sent to a VA clinic, where they told me I had PTSD. Until that point, I hadn't heard of PTSD and thought my problems were work-related. I started healing and am still on meds. My VA therapists turned my life around.
The story in Matterhorn is both timeless and specific to a time. What is the difference between Vietnam and now?
The biggest difference is the all-volunteer military. I'm not sure it's really healthy for our republic. I think a disproportionate share of our military come from what I call the military "L"--North Dakota to Texas to Georgia. We are literally hiring mercenaries to help fight our battles, mirroring the way the Romans hired Germanic peoples. There is no threat to an ordinary or privileged kid now, no draft. There is no stake for most of us and for most of our political decision-makers. We overload a tiny percentage of our citizens to fight our wars, and with tour after tour, we are destroying a segment of our society. The costs to them are apparent. I worry about the costs to our democracy.
The country still hasn't digested Vietnam. It's still the elephant in the living room. There is still great division over the war and great misunderstanding. Recently, on a pre-publication tour, I had someone tell me that there was no difference between joining the military during Vietnam and joining the SS--even if the person was drafted.
Why do we need to keep Vietnam in our collective memory? What is important for today?
What's that old saying, if you don't understand history you're doomed to repeat it? The parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan are frightening. The original mission was to find bin Laden and that made sense to me; now it's to establish a democracy. We are supporting a corrupt government; the enemy can cross borders and we can't chase them; we have self-imposed rules of engagement and they don't; the Taliban can melt into the population and disappear and we stick out like sore thumbs and don't even speak the language; we know very little about the culture and what motivates these people. The final parallel is that those people are motivated to fight forever and the American people aren't. The Afghans in the tribal areas are very ignorant about the U.S. or even the central government in Kabul, but they do know that infidels are on their turf, and they are never going to quit fighting until we leave. You can't coerce people into democracy; you can only lead them there by example.
I'm no pacifist. I am exceedingly proud to have been a Marine. I didn't want to write an antiwar book or a prowar book. I just wanted to write what was true about war. The more people know what is true about war, the better we will understand what we are asking of our kids when we send them in to straighten out the messes we adults have made. We'll be more likely to make certain that we have done everything possible before we admit failure and have to send them.
The Matterhorn will become available March 23, 2010. You can preorder it here.
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