ABOUT MICHAEL W. RODRIGUEZ

Michael W. Rodriguez served as a United States Marine (1965-1970) and is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. He graduated from Incarnate Word College in 1995 with a B.A. in Communication Arts and is pursuing a Masters in Communications. His other published work includes articles on the Seminole-Negro Scouts, veterans affairs, an entry in the forthcoming Aztlan and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (University of California Press), and four years as editor and staff writer for Texas VVA News. Michael makes his home in San Antonio, Texas. Humidity Moon is his first book.

You can read many of Michael W. Rodriguez's short stories at his own WEB site: http://lonestar.texas.net/~mikerod/.

Humidity Moon
Michael W. Rodriguez

$15.00
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ISBN: 1-877603-54-6

"The graceful stories in Humidity Moon recount the feelings and thoughts of a naive teen-age Chicano serving his time as a Marine infantryman (a “Grunt”) in the hell of Vietnam. In spare language which is nevertheless rich in the details of war, Michael Rodriguez describes, among other facets, the choking heat, the red clinging dust, the freezing rains, and—above all—the cold fear that comprised the narrow, isolated world of the Vietnam War for our young men fighting there. Against that background, Rodriguez portrays what really counted to these young men—besides staying alive and sometimes even more than staying alive: their brief but deep and complicated relationships to one another.
Evocative of great war stories from America’s literary past, the stories in Humidity Moon reveal important, universal truths about humanity, love and war as only good fiction can."

—Marian Faye Novack, Ph.D.

"Thirty years after the actual events, Humidity Moon brings back the reality of combat with great narrative force—the fear, exhilaration, futility, and rage felt by young men far from home in a war whose purpose no one understood. Set in the early years of the American intervention in Viet Nam, the stories convey the fundamental principles of the fraternity of grunts and the awful responsibility they shared for one another’s lives. Surfers from California, Chicanos from across the Southwest, and Marines from working-class communities throughout the U.S. share in the struggle to survive their tour of duty and get back to the World. Humidity Moon is a major contribution to the corpus of Viet Nam war literature, and places the Mexican American experience back into the cultural legacy of America’s longest ordeal.”

—Jorge Mariscal Editor of Aztlan and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War

"Michael Rodriguez is one of the finest writers of fiction about the Vietnam War—in fact, the second story in this collection, “Christmas 1966,” is my favorite short story about the war. As a folklorist I collect and study oral narratives and I find that Michael’s prose style, more than that of any other I know, captures the quality of war stories as they are told. The sense of immediacy, of somone talking directly to the reader, is truly remarkable."

—Dr. Lydia Fish, Director
Vietnam Veterans Oral History and Folklore Project

About the Cover Artist

Cheryl Boswell is an award-winning graphic artist from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, whose Mardi Gras posters were selected as the "Official Virtual Mardi Gras Poster" for three consecutive years. Many of her award-winning images are on display at “http://www.satchmo.com/cheryl” in the online gallery of her Web site, Pathways. Humidity Moon is her first book cover.

Copyright © Pecan Grove Press,
1997-2003
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