ALBUQUERQUE — The University of New Mexico Press announces the publication of Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father’s Battle for Justice by Laura Kalpakian, available in paperback and e-book on July 7.
Paula Becker, author of A House on Stilts: Mothering in the Age of Opioid Addiction, praised Undesirable as “a poignant examination of duty,” saying, “This book reminds a new generation that wars fought far away still exact bitter collateral damage from everyone they touch back home.”
In January 1969, angry after a fight with his father, 19-year-old Doug Johnson — in what will be a fateful choice — decides to enlist in the Army. Once in Vietnam as a point man, Doug becomes addicted to speed and heroin, goes AWOL multiple times, and is court-martialed and imprisoned. In order to avoid a second court martial, he agrees to accept an “undesirable” discharge that denies him veterans’ benefits and any recognition of his wartime service. In late August 1970, drugged, malnourished, and clutching the sandal of a dead Viet Cong, Doug staggers off a plane into the arms of his father.
But Doug’s return home is only the beginning of this story. The core of Undesirable recounts another war: Doug’s father against the US Army. For three years, he fights to have his son’s “undesirable” discharge changed to “honorable.” Half a century later Laura Kalpakian — devoted daughter and sister — exhumes the evidence her father collected. From this trove of documents she assembles a heartbreaking story of a father’s love for his son and a son’s experience at war. Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father’s Battle for Justice demands that we ask what we — and our government — owe to our veterans for the physical, psychological, and emotional sacrifices they and their families make.
Laura Kalpakian is the author of Memory into Memoir: A Writer’s Handbook (UNM Press), a memoir, sixteen novels, and five prize-winning collections of short fiction. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father’s Battle for Justice will be available July 7, wherever books are sold. Booksellers can order at a trade discount by contacting Simon & Schuster Distribution Services.
