There is a huge hole in this edition. A three hour book discussion took place on Kevin and Monica Benderman's Letters from Fort Brig. We have nothing kind to say about the book (except for Betty noting the design on the flap covers of the book jacket).
We've made it a point to discuss every book by war resisters. Should this become an issue, we will post the discussion. We spent two hours editing the transcript of the discussion and have saved it our final draft.
It's a wonderful discussion and all it's going to take is one nasty e-mail from one person (not anyone, a specific person) to result in being posted. Kat, C.I. and Ava especially walk you through why the book is offensive and useless. At one point, Ava notes that we hoped to "pan for gold" but that was impossible.
We can't endorse it and feel we wasted our time in reading it and discussing it since we're not posting the discussion. After the final draft was complete, we read it out loud. Due to the concerns of one person participating, we said, "We won't publish it." Then the one person said, "No, there's nothing in that discussion that isn't correct and backed up." (C.I., as usual, was able to quote passages directly and cite page numbers. But everyone -- whether they were providing direct quotes or not -- could back up their opinions.) As this went back and forth and hour, Ava and C.I. said, "We're writing out TV piece."
They did that in twenty and discovered we were still going back and forth. Dona suggested we all "Sleep on it." Which we did.
But to the prickly person whose e-mail could result it in being posted, don't write us. Don't write any of us. Ava reveals an e-mail in the discussion that she deleted before C.I. saw it. It was an insulting e-mail and goes to problems with the book. This is a really bad book and we're trying to be kind and not provide example after example of how awful it is. Don't write C.I. and don't run to Elaine. Don't ever write any of us again or the discussion is posted.
We're not covering your issue ever again. We're fully aware that you think you are the judge and jury of everything and that's the biggest problem with the book. But one e-mail about the book, one e-mail telling us another war resister is "wrong" and this is how it really is will result in that book discussion being published.
In a book that goes on at length about marginalization, someone fails to include how they marginalize themselves. We would like that to be our last word on the subject.