Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam [Hardcover]

Wayne Karlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

On March 19, 1969, First Lieutenant Homer R. Steedly, Jr., shot and killed a North Vietnamese soldier, Dam, when they met on a jungle trail. Steedly took a diary—filled with beautiful line drawings—from the body of the dead soldier, which he subsequently sent to his mother for safekeeping. Thirty-five years later, Steedly rediscovers the forgotten dairy and begins to confront his suppressed memories of the war that defined his life, deciding to return to Viet Nam and meet the family of the man he killed to seek their forgiveness.

Fellow veteran and award-winning author Wayne Karlin accompanied Steedly on his remarkable journey. In Wandering Souls he recounts Homer’s movement towards a recovery that could only come about through a confrontation with the ghosts of his past—and the need of Dam’s family to bring their child’s “wandering soul” to his own peace.

Wandering Souls limns the terrible price of war on soldiers and their loved ones, and reveals that we heal not by forgetting war’s hard lessons, but by remembering its costs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The expiation and atonement are cathartic, and the story illustrates one method to put to rest the demons that followed many soldiers home. It is clear that Karlin has a passion for the subject to match his skill as a writer.
--The Roanoke Times

A mesmerizing, beautifully rendered work of nonfiction...
a one-of-a-kind Vietnam War story...It is a book not soon forgotten.
--The Veteran-Magazine of the Vietnam Veterans of America

"A surprisingly moving account of a Vietnam War veteran who returned to face the family of the man he killed.... Despite the reconciliation, the book is a poignant reminder of the war's sad consequences for both sides." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Wandering Souls is an important, moving, utterly compelling, and wonderfully open-hearted book, one that will become a touchstone in America's literature about the aftershocks of our terrible misadventure in Vietnam. This is a book that will endure. Decades from now, it will help people see and feel the ongoing consequences of war's murderous folly." -- Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carry

"Wandering Souls strips away the heroic mythology used to mask the depravity and anguish of war...It reminds us that once we descend into the stygian world of killing there is never any escape. The book is a plea for redemption and forgiveness. It is a plea for empathy. And it is a plea to look at war not as it is sold to us by the entertainment industry and the war-makers, but as it is experienced by those who fight and die." --Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

"Wandering Souls proves again Wayne Karlin's talent in discovering the beauty of the human soul in the ruins of war and loss." -- Le Minh Khue, author of The Stars, The Earth, The River

"In Wandering Souls, Wayne Karlin speaks our common language of sorrow and pain and reconciliation. His book is sure to find its readers in the two countries he loves." --Ho Anh Thai, author of Behind the Red Mist

About the Author

Wayne Karlin is the author of numerous books, including Lost Armies, The Wished-For Country, and Rumors and Stones. In 2005, he received an Excellence in the Arts Award from the Vietnam Veterans of America. Karlin lives in Maryland, where he teaches at the College of Southern Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; 1 edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568584059
• ISBN-13: 978-1568584058
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #823,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wayne Karlin has published seven novels: Marble Mountain, The Wished-For Country, Prisoners, Lost Armies, The Extras, Us, and Crossover, and three works of creative non-fiction: Rumors and Stones, War Movies, and Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam. While he is perhaps best known for his books about the aftermath of the Vietnam War, he has also written a historical novel set in 17th Century Maryland, a spy novel centered in Eastern Europe and another novel set in the Middle East. His writing career began after service as a Marine in the Vietnam War when he became an editor of Curbstone Press and co-edited the first anthology of veterans' fiction from the war: Free Fire Zone: Short Stories by Vietnam Veterans. More recently, as American editor for Curbstone's Voices from Vietnam series, he has edited and adapted translations of writers from Vietnam, including (with Le Minh Khue and Truong Vu), The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, which was listed as a Critics' Choice for 1995-1996, and (with Ho Anh Thai) Love After War: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam, an anthology chosen by The San Francisco Chronicle as one of the 100 best books of 2003. Karlin was one of the script writers and a consultant for the film Song of the Stork, a Vietnamese-Singaporean co-production which has won the Best Feature Film title at the Milano Film Festival, was the first Asian film chosen in the Official Selection of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, Italy and was in the Official Selection of the Reflection of Our Time category of the Montreal Film Festival and has been shown in other festivals in Belgium, Canada and Thailand. He was the consulting producer and writer for a six part National Public Radio radio series on the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Karlin has received five State of Maryland Individual Artist Awards in Fiction, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paterson Prize in Fiction for 1999 (with Barbara Kingsolver), and the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in Arts Award in 2005. A Professor of Languages and Literature at the College of Southern Maryland, Karlin is married to Ohnmar Thein Karlin, and has one son, the travel writer Adam Karlin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Love This Book, October 4, 2009

By 

Tom Lacombe (Browntown, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam (Hardcover)

As an infantry soldier in Vietnam, I had an experience similar to Homer's, and the story of reconciliation drew me. But, the book gave me much more. Wayne Karlin delved into the postwar lives of the combatants, and their families. Through these stories I found myself gaining a better understanding of things I had been dealing with for years. It was kind of reassuring knowing that I wasn't the "Lone Ranger". I think reading "Wandering Souls" will give folks a better idea of what combat soldiers deal with long after the nations involved declare a war over.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An honest and enlightening book, October 4, 2009

By 

Michael Archer "Author of A Patch of Ground:... (Reno, NV) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam (Hardcover)

I cannot recall being moved more deeply by a book than I was while reading Wandering Souls. Wayne Karlin's beautifully crafted account of compassion, grace and forgiveness is made even more amazing in the knowledge that a despairing Homer Steedly somewhow found his way to Karlin -- the one person whose sublime understanding and enormous talent could fully capture the essence of that experience. I have no doubt that this honest and enlightening book will soon rank among the most highly regarded works in the literature of the Vietnam War.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Returning Dam to his home..., February 23, 2010

By 

Jill Meyer (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam (Hardcover)

was Homer Steedley's mission as he helped bring the body of Hoang Ngoc Dam, back to his home village outside of Hanoi, almost 40 years after he had killed Dam in battle. Wayne Karlin's masterfully-written book is a complete picture of two young men from opposite parts of the world who meet one fateful day in Vietnam. Steedley, the son of a WW2 soldier and a German war bride, was raised in South Carolina as a farm boy. He joined the army at the height of the Vietnam War and was sent, as a 2nd Lt, to an infantry unit north of Saigon. Steedley saw brutality in battle and in the everyday life of a soldier in Vietnam. He served for a little over a year, and one fateful, and fatal, day, he met a young soldier - a medic - from the north, named Hoang Ngoc Dam. Dam, also the son and grandson of soldiers and raised as a farmer, had left his village and his large family to fight against the Americans. After five years in uniform, he was shot by Steedley as they abruptly encountered each other in the field.

After Steedley shot Dam, he took documents from his body - a notebook, some papers of identification, and other things - and instead of turning them over to US army intelligence, he sent them home to his mother, who kept them wrapped in paper in her attic. Dam's body was recovered by his fellow soldiers and buried in a mass grave with about 20 other soldiers. His family was notified of his death, but they were unable to recover his body for reburial in his home village.

Thirty five years passed and Homer Steedley returned to the US, and like many Vietnam veterans, fell into an uneasy peace. He had some problems and lived by himself, becoming a computer whiz in the early days of the computer age. In his early 40's, he met and married a woman who was instrumental in giving him some calming days. But he never forgot the man he shot and the papers he took from the body and sent home. In the late 1990's, he retrieved the papers and notebook from his mother's attic and attempted to find the soldier - Dam's - family to return the documents to them. Through an organisation run by Wayne Karlin, the soldier in the papers was identified and Karlin went back to Vietnam in 2002 and returned Dam's belongings to his still-mourning family. Homer Steedley himself returned to Vietnam in 2008 and helped to rebury Dam's body in his native village. The body's location was identified by a Vietnamese psychic.

The return of Dam's body and belongings was accompanied by an acceptance of his family of Homer Steedley as the man who took their brother's life in battle. Acceptance by Dam's family was a sort of blessing on Homer Steedley, a lightening of sorts of the burden he had carried for 40 years.

Karlin's writing is excellent through out his book. He's never heavy handed in describing the victims - and there were many on both sides - and the battles both Dam and Steedley participated in. It is, in the end, an almost joyous accounting of love and acceptance from both sides. A real winner.