Kassie Rose and I (Christopher Purdy) interviewed Karl Marlantes by phone this morning (June 9). He’s Kassie’s discovery and Kassie’s interview, actually. I dialed the phone.

Kassie had strongly recommended this book Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War and she’s right. Boy, is she right.

Marlantes served as a Marine Lieutenant in Vietnam when he was 21. He wrote this novel over many years and it was rejected by every publisher. Nobody wants to hear about the Vietnam War. Ancient History. Hollywood has already done it. Switch it to Afghanistan–then maybe.

Marlantes, a businessman from the pacific northwest, now 65 and a father of five, revised, and waited. The story of how this book came to be published is a big part of Kassie’s interview.

If you are of an age to have grown up watching the Vietnam War in all its horror on the news every night, you will find this book much more visceral, more powerful, and more moving than any visual image, then or now.