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The Moral of the Story is the Story
The Tilted Palace: Weeds of Misfortune follows a retired Green Beret haunted by Vietnam and marooned in the quiet of small-town Massachusetts, who meets a disheveled paster with whom he forms a bond as they struggle to survive. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Righting the narrative around Vietnam had been simmering inside me since before I returned from that war in 1968. Discovering and writing an essence of the real story, beyond the general impression of the presumed feckless French in the French-Indochina War, got the ball rolling with Weeds of War: Those Who Bled at Dien Bien Phu, the first in the trilogy.I understand there are something over three thousand books on Vietnam, from text-like to raw and unending visceral adventure. While each may have a distinct target audience, I needed something that speaks to my neighbor, my ex-wife, and a general audience. Ingesting human interest story with historical “corrections” is what I came up with in Weeds of War, and carried forward with Irish Weeds and now The Tilted Palace.
What are some things that you find interesting about the human condition that you think make for great fiction?
Our assumptions about others — almost always wrong. Our mistaken belief in knowing what is best or not knowing, much less understanding, the entire story. The too late epiphany between characters. The “Plan B” that each of us comes up with when life goes south.
Was it important for you to deliver a moral to readers, or was it circumstantial to deliver an effective novel?
In large part, the moral of the story is the story. Imparting my truth has been the point. Being able to do so in a manner that touches the mind or the heart or the soul of the reader is, of course, an effective novel.
Where do you see your characters after the book ends?
There is potential for all of them going in different directions, either together or separately. Trinity and Jilly could easily be lesbian or bi-sexual, or seen to be, then discovered so by the communist government — oh my! Chang may be “turned” by a CIA operative — oh my! Jimmy Ray? Who knows? Perhaps a pathetic effort to replace Jezz or he may be saved by the need of the other characters to be saved by him. Or another story could begin with Jimmy Ray’s headstone and epitaph. Patrick and Thuy? They may simply die on the vine, aged and with memories that have either sustained or killed them — what could have been, perhaps. Or, Jimmy Ray’s mother could easily return to be the classic character she is in Irish Weeds. Old, yet fiery, Bess could be a main character in The Troubles of Northern Ireland, with Jimmy Ray either assisting or trying to redirect her.
What fun it all is.
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The reality is strongmen with militias pressing for power, and multiple politicians and political factions with sharp elbows eyeing the Presidential Palace and affecting its balance.
Supported and directed by communism, a guerilla force called Viet Cong is recruiting and stirring things up for the government. Patrick and Thuy did not expect another war, nor to be engaged in it to the bitter end and beyond.
Now, fifteen years after it ended, that American-Vietnam War is seldom spoken of other than when an isolated veteran messes up real bad. Then Vietnam vets are referred to as “drug-crazed baby-killers.”
Jimmy Ray Crandall served years in the war. “It ain’t right,” he would grind out, revealing a hint of his trauma. Just in time he meets the dog. Her owner is a young woman with her own troubles. There is sharing, drinking, and bickering until insight begins to perform little miracles.
Can a return to Saigon be healing?
Old friends with new stories come to the fore. Regardless of it all, the war was lost years ago—no change there. Perspective on the past, however, can change a great many things.
The Tilted Palace: Weeds of Misfortune
The Tilted Palace: Weeds of Misfortune is a haunting and human story about broken souls trying to stitch themselves back together. It opens with Jimmy Ray Crandall, a retired Green Beret haunted by Vietnam and marooned in the quiet of small-town Massachusetts. His loneliness seeps through every line until a wounded stray dog, and later a disheveled pastor named Trinity Hathaway, stumble into his life. What follows is a gritty, sometimes funny, often painful dance between despair and redemption. Through late-night bourbon, raw honesty, and shared pain, two strangers become mirrors of each other’s brokenness. It’s not a simple war story or a tale of faith. It’s about survival when everything that gave life meaning has already burned to ash.
The writing pulls no punches. It’s blunt, messy, and real. The author writes like someone who’s seen too much and refuses to pretty it up. The dialogue, sharp and layered, swings between biting sarcasm and quiet revelation. There’s a strange rhythm to it, like life itself, uneven but true. Some scenes hit me hard, especially when the pastor and the soldier lay their wounds bare. Both want to die, yet somehow keep each other alive. The dog, Jezz, might be the most human of them all. She’s the glue, the silent witness to two lost people trying not to drown.
This is an emotional book. It made me angry at how war chews up men like Jimmy Ray and spits them out forgotten. It made me ache for people like Trinity, trying to preach hope while secretly running on fumes. There’s no sermon here, just raw humanity. The story doesn’t tie things up neatly, which I liked. Life rarely does. The prose has its rough edges, sure, but they fit the characters. They live in those jagged lines. At times, the story drifts into monologues that feel like confessionals, and that works because I feel like the whole book is one long confession.
I’d recommend The Invisibles to readers who crave something honest and bruised. I think it’s for those who understand that redemption doesn’t always look holy and that healing can start with a bottle, a stranger, or a dog scratching at the door. For me, this book wasn’t just a story; it was an experience.
Pages: 253 | ASIN : B0FF4B3CF5
LITERARY TITAN 