Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel [Paperback]

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2008

They had their whole lives to look forward to if only their husbands could survive Vietnam. In the spring of 1970 - right after the Kent State National Guard shootings and President Nixon's two-month incursion into Cambodia - four newly married young women come together at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, when their husbands go on active duty as officers in the U.S. Army. Different as these four women are, they have one thing in common: Their overwhelming fear that, right after these nine weeks of training, their husbands could be shipped out to Vietnam - and they could become war widows. Sharon is a Northern Jewish anti-war protester who fell in love with an ROTC cadet; Kim is a Southern Baptist whose husband is intensely jealous; Donna is a Puerto Rican who grew up in an enlisted man's family; and Wendy is a Southern black whose parents have sheltered her from the brutal reality of racism in America. Read MRS. LIEUTENANT to discover what happens as these women overcome their prejudices, reveal their darkest secrets, and are initiated into their new lives as army officers' wives during the turbulent Vietnam War period.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the website MrsLieutenant.com:

"Mrs. Lieutenant was a wonderful way for me to connect with what my daughter's going through - congratulations on capturing the intensity of that experience with such great characters!"

-- Bob Niemack, father of a daughter married to a brigade surgeon serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, April 2010

From the Author

The novel MRS. LIEUTENANT took 38 years to be published.

The novel's saga started when I was a new Mrs. Lieutenant in May 1970 during the Vietnam War and right after the Kent State shootings.  The experience introduced me to the world of army wives that I would never have otherwise known.

About 20 years later and after I had started the Los Angeles Chapter of the national organization Sisters in Crime, I told the story of my military spouse experience to two female movie producers.  They were intrigued and optioned the story for a movie.

They eventually told me that Hollywood people did not "get" the movie concept and that I would have to first write a book.  By the time I wrote the first draft of the novel the producers had moved on.

For another 20 years or so I wrote and rewrote the novel.  (It had to be a novel rather than a nonfiction book to protect the people whose stories I wanted to tell.)  I created fictional characters and some fictional events for a more compelling story.

Many agents and publishers over the years turned the novel down.  But I felt strongly that there was a place for a novel about this slice of women's social history at the beginning of the women's movement in the United States.

When POD (print on demand) self-publishing became an option, I decided to self-publish MRS. LIEUTENANT.  At the same time I entered it in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. When the book was named a semifinalist of this competition, I felt vindicated for my 38-year belief in sharing this story.

At the same time I stumbled into blogging and social media for book marketing.  From that point on I dove into learning as much as possible about this brave new online world, and I co-founded an online marketing company with my younger daughter Yael K. Miller.

Now ebooks have opened up the self-publishing world even more - and I'm engaged in resurrecting some of my favorite unpublished stories to give them a life on the Internet.

You can see my current available books and ebooks at budurl.com/PZMbooks    

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 494 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419686291
• ISBN-13: 978-1419686290
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,307,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Friendship

More About the Author

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company MillerMosaicLLC.com, which works with companies and individuals to use social media to effectively attract more clients and customers. The company also builds WordPress websites for clients.

Phyllis writes posts for the company blog at www.MillerMosaicSocialMediaMarketing.com as well as book marketing and social media guest posts throughout the Internet.

She is also interested in using fiction to teach history -- and there is information on this initiative in connection with her 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist novel MRS. LIEUTENANT at www.MrsLieutenant.com

Phyllis and her husband Mitch wrote the novel LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS -- see www.MollieSanders.com -- based in part on their 2005 Nicholls Fellowship competition quarterfinalist screenplay "Lt. Commander Mollie Sanders."

Her company's Facebook pages are www.facebook.com/powermarketing, www.facebook.com/bookmarketing and www.facebook.com/millermosaicsocialmedia

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best of Everything for Vietnam-Era Miltary Wives, May 27, 2008

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (Paperback)

Phyllis Miller sent me this book after seeing my name on an Internet forum. I was a little concerned because many first novels are really amateurish, almost embarrassing to read.

But I really liked Mrs. Lieutenant. Miller is a writer. She knows how to set up her story and make the characters seem real. Her pacing was good: I didn't want to stop reading. The story arc was strong.

As I read, I was reminded of Rona Jaffe's classic, The best of everything, made into a movie that captured the 50s era career woman.

What Jaffe did for the college graduate in publishing, Miller does for the Vietnam era junior officer's wife.

Those women reminded me of my college classmates who married right out of college (even though they weren't all college grads). Women were expected to marry. They had uneasy relationships with their husbands. They worried about what to wear and what to cook. And they lived in those awful apartments! I visited friends with husbands in grad school, living in student housing and eating budget meals...very similar.

Miller captures the freshness and naiveté of those women, all transplanted to an environment that forced them to deal with new challenges. They met people who were really different from themselves in religion, values, child rearing styles and of course accents. They're so nervous when summoned to tea with the commanding officer and they wear gloves...gloves!

We didn't get too much insight into the men's days at Armor School in Fort Knox. They didn't seem to have homework and they didn't talk about getting uniforms ready and other details of their world.

As a survivor of that era, not married myself, I watched my friends grow into the Women's Movement just five years later. They went back to school, finished graduate degrees and told their husbands, "It's my turn now." Some got divorced. Some just went through a rocky patch.

I just watched the PBS series, Carrier. Commentaries noted that officers' wives have their own careers now. They're doctors, lawyers, psychologists and teachers. Watching families join sailors at the end of the cruise, you could see how much the military has changed. For one thing, women are flying planes off carrier decks and running traffic control rooms.

So what I take away from Mrs. Lieutenant is a trip down memory lane. I can remember not just the hairstyles but also the tight social fabric, the awkward social situations when you had to do the right thing, the young women rushing into marriages instead of taking time to have their own lives.

Miller subtitles the book "A Sharon Gold Novel," suggesting she will write more. I hope she does.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Women Behind the Men, January 16, 2008

By 

Newsyrob - See all my reviews

"Mrs. Lieutenant" presents the vivid, personal stories of four young wives as they learn to cope with military life, against the backdrop of America at war--both in Vietnam and at home--in 1970. The four "Mrs. Lieutenants" (they are defined by their husbands' roles) embark on their individual journeys into womanhood, providing us with an intimate, detailed perspective on one of our Nation's most dynamic, unsettling and influential eras.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful read, May 27, 2008

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (Paperback)

This is a very delightful reading about four women whose husbands are in officer training class down in Kentucky. The women themselves are four different individuals from different parts of the country. There's Sharon, the main character, from Chicago and Jewish and against the Vietnam war, but she supports her husband's decision to be enlisted as an officer. There is Kim, an orphan from the south, married to a votalile man and she has endured more life tragedies than a person should bear in one lifetime. There is Donna, a Puerto Rican who is an army brat and has seen the world through her father's deployment to different bases. She is happily married to her husband, even if he is a white man. Then there's Wendy, a Southern Black woman, faced the prejudices of being a black woman in the midst of the deep South.

Together these women became friends and bonded together during the six-week officer training course. Together, these women learned what it means to be an officer's wife in the midst of a traumatic turmoil that is racking the United States. Together, they faced personal trials and came through it knowing that friendships will endure.

This is a delightful reading from an author who is making her fictional novel debut. It is a quick read and an intense one. The characters' voices will linger long after the last page has been turned.

5/27/08