I met a guy named Danny Wynn at a writer’s retreat I attended a couple of years ago. A few months after the retreat, he published a book titled Lucien and I. Danny calls it a collage novel. His scenes are like a collage of photos. An interesting structural concept, but what I liked about the book was it was a study of this group of young hedonists. The group had its own history, its own rules governing its little pocket exclusive and exclusionary behavior as it bounced around the world seeking gratification, some of which came from thumbing its little society’s nose at the morals governing and limiting greater society. The viewpoint from which the reader sees Lucien and his little society is the main character. His youth is in the rear view mirror, but being there he can still see it and try to hang onto it. I think Danny’s book is nicely done.
I mention Lucien and I because the notion of little segments of society forming packs, devising behavior governing rules of their own is exactly what I was trying to treat in my first book, The Ensign Locker and the last one, Junior Officer Bunkroom.
Continuing the meet the characters series, following are snippets of some of the pilots in Jon Zachery’s squadron.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Butch Felder. He was called Botch. Just because.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Mike Allison. He was called Alice because he didn’t like having a girl’s name.
Lieutenant Steve Carson. He was called Your because he wore a name tag saying “Your Name Goes Here.” Your was the schedules officer in Zachery’s squadron.
Lieutenant Commander Robert T. Fischer. He was called RT. As a Lieutenant Commander, he was above the junior officer ranks where an nickname was part insult and part badge of membership in an exclusive and exclusionary mini-society: navy fighter pilots. He was also Jon Zachery’s boss.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Greg Haywood. Greg was the tallest, biggest pilot in the airwing. He was called Tiny. He and Jon Zachery had been friends for five years.
Jon Zachery is, in one respect, like Danny Wynn’s main character in Lucien and I. Because of two years enlisted service, and serving two years on a destroyer, Jon is older than the other junior officers in his squadron. But his experience on the surface of the earth counts for nothing with the new society he tries to enter. Only what he does in the sky counts.
I mention Lucien and I because the notion of little segments of society forming packs, devising behavior governing rules of their own is exactly what I was trying to treat in my first book, The Ensign Locker and the last one, Junior Officer Bunkroom.
Continuing the meet the characters series, following are snippets of some of the pilots in Jon Zachery’s squadron.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Butch Felder. He was called Botch. Just because.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Mike Allison. He was called Alice because he didn’t like having a girl’s name.
Lieutenant Steve Carson. He was called Your because he wore a name tag saying “Your Name Goes Here.” Your was the schedules officer in Zachery’s squadron.
Lieutenant Commander Robert T. Fischer. He was called RT. As a Lieutenant Commander, he was above the junior officer ranks where an nickname was part insult and part badge of membership in an exclusive and exclusionary mini-society: navy fighter pilots. He was also Jon Zachery’s boss.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Greg Haywood. Greg was the tallest, biggest pilot in the airwing. He was called Tiny. He and Jon Zachery had been friends for five years.
Jon Zachery is, in one respect, like Danny Wynn’s main character in Lucien and I. Because of two years enlisted service, and serving two years on a destroyer, Jon is older than the other junior officers in his squadron. But his experience on the surface of the earth counts for nothing with the new society he tries to enter. Only what he does in the sky counts.