Brats Book News

Brats Book News

Today I'm writing to you as an AF Brat and the Director of the Ramey HS Alumni Association.

Most of you know I've been working with Sarah Bird to promote her new brat book, "The Yokota Officers Club" being published by Knopf & Son's on June 22nd.

You may have already received a note from Marc Curtis of the Military Brats Registry regarding the availability of the book at his website. Marc, Sarah and I worked quite constantly for several weeks to get Knopf & Sons to give Marc a big enough discount on the book so he could provide it to the brats at a lower cost to the brats than Amazon.com.

Things are starting to really come together on this project and they should. The book is excellent. My personal review of the book follows below.

We are always complaining that there aren't enough books out there about military brat life....well this one is a good one, and really deserves a chance. The only way we will see more like this in print, in the future, is if this one does well.

For those of you in Texas....pick up a copy of the June 2001 "Texas Monthly" magazine and you'll find an interview with Sarah Bird about YOC. Texas Monthly will also be putting the first two chapters of the book online at their website: http://www.texasmonthly.com

Mary Edwards Wertsch has a good comment regarding the book below in Marc's info on the book. Standard disclaimer applies here. I've not received any compensation from Sarah Bird, Knopf & Sons or Marc Curtis....etc.etc. Sarah lives here in Austin and is a good friend. Her books previous to this one, have been very enjoyable for Cindy and myself....and this time the book hit very close to home...very, very close...well read my review below.

Thanks in advance.

Glenn

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Glenn Greenwood RHS '73, Director, Ramey HS 70's Alumni Association, RameyHS@aol.com

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Greenwood

As a military brat, asked by the author and air force brat Sarah Bird to provide her with feedback on her new book, "The Yokota Officers Club;" I had the distinct pleasure of reading an advanced copy earlier this year. Although I knew this book was a fictional work, the characters became absolutely real to me. The brothers and sisters in this book were my brothers and sisters and my friends in the base Capehart housing down the street. Kadena AFB on Okinawa, "the rock" was much the same as Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico "the rock" on the other side of the world. The pilot father as a maniac behind the wheel, racing a family packed into an automobile almost non-stop to the next duty station was my B-52 crewman father doing the same with our family. And Armed Forces Radio and the airman DJs...was it really that bad all over the world?

The forever concerns of getting into trouble and ruining my father's career walked up behind me, stood over my shoulder and breathed heavily down my neck once again as I read this book. More importantly, I was reminded of friends who were removed from the bases and my life the day after their fathers didn't come back from "training and weather missions." At age 46, this book finally brought home the fact that I was not allowed, as a friend, to share their grief and offer support over the loss of their fathers. A tragedy for all concerned, but shared and shouldered by very few.

Sarah Bird's first person fictional narrative of the personal one on one relationship between the main character Bernie, and the family maid Fumiko and the family secrets surrounding her; speak of volumes on the impact we, in the smaller sense as dependents, and we, in a larger sense as a country had on people in the countries occupied by America's military after World War II.

It has been a long, dry, almost desolate 25 years since the last fictional book about growing up in a military family, Pat Conroy's "Great Santini" was released by a major publisher. With Knopf & Sons publication of "The Yokota Officers Club," we are finally, given not only a glass of cool water to drink from, to quench our thirst with; but, we are also given the spring the water flows from.

If you pride yourself on being a military brat...don't miss this book. There is a bit of all of us; our triumphs, failings, and also our humanity as military brats to be found within its pages.

Glenn Greenwood-Air Force Brat, Director, Ramey High School Alumni Association (Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico)

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Marc's posting

Military Brats Registry News:

I'm always looking for new items that would be of value to Military Brats. Well, I've been reading a review copy of a new book that will be out just in time for summer vacation reading! June 19 marks the release of a fabulous new Brat book by Sarah Bird titled "The Yokota Officers Club." Sarah has been registered in the Military-Brats Registry for 2 years and has a very typical trail of schools and bases in her record. She is also the author of "Virgin of the Rodeo," "The Mommy Club," "The Boyfriend School," and "Alamo House."

Set against a background of post World War II Japan and Vietnam era Okinawa, the new book by author Sarah Bird, The Yokota Officers Club is the fictionalized story of an Air Force family caught up in both the adventure and the politics of living on the local economy and the politics of rank and power in the "little Americas" that are US military bases abroad. It's all here ..the trip to post war Japan on the troop ship USS President Wilson with its attendant sea sickness for some; the mother's struggle to give some stability to a family moving every couple of years; a father always leaving on classified missions on an hours notice and not being able to tell the family where he was going or when he would be back; the forever attempts of military children to fit in wherever their father's assignments landed them; and the base politics of the general's daughter married to a wing commander who wears both her husband's and her father's ranks on her shoulders.

From the back cover...

"The first half of this book will make you scream with laughter. The second will tear your heart out. Very few novelists have gotten the military brat story right. Believe me, Sarah Bird gets it right. For the first time we have a writer as dead-on as Pat Conroy, but from the daughter's point of view. We are so very lucky that Sarah Bird has brought her immense talents to the telling of our story." --Mary Wertsch, "Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress" "Who else can write about dancing, music, JP-4 fuel, the military, and strawberries, make it funny, and also make it about matters of the heart?

Only Sarah Bird. This is her best book yet, a big book that you'll want to read again as soon as you finish it the first time." --Clyde Edgerton "From the family car to forbidden airspace, this is a wonderful book. If you've ever been a sibling, a parent, a spy, a spouse, a flyer, a teenager, an entertainer, an outsider.... Or if you've ever felt trapped." --Roy Blount, Jr.

"Sarah Bird's world, viewed through the eyes and memories of a sassy Air Force brat, is our world: tender, hurtful, complex, unexplained. She captures the certainty we all have growing up, that we are the serpent who drove our parents out of the Eden of our childhood. Funny, wrenching, singularly moving, The Yokota Officers Club is a marvelous story. You'll want to share it with everyone who knew you when." --Shelby Hearon "The miracle of The Yokota Officers Club is that it defies the laws of its own gravity. How can a story about dispossession and unspeakable loss, about fading national glory and family heartbreak, be so consistently--and authentically--hilarious? Sarah Bird's novel is an unforgettable melding of exuberant wit and deep compassion." --Stephen Harrigan

Special Offer!

Through a special arrangement with the publisher I am able to make this book available at a huge discount for pre-release sales. Order between now and June 19 and pay only $17.25 ...that's a 25% reduction off the retail price of $23.00 if you purchase before the release date. Go to http://www.military-brats.com and click on "Brat Store" and look for the" Yokota Officers Club" to place your order. Books will be shipped on June 19.