James Stark
"The Recruit" has appeared in German as „Werben um Rick“ in a German language anthologie, Querschnitte, as of September 1st in Novumverlag.
The stories in the collection, entitled Collateral Damage, have as a common thread the physical and psychic effects of the wars of the 20th Century, not only on their combatants, but also on the families that accept the return of changed loved ones. I selected the term, collateral damage, because, in my way of thinking, it is a glib, if not cynical euphemism the professional military uses to denote the unintended secondary or subordinate destruction of people or property in a military operation.
The theme of the returning soldier is as old as the classics of Ulysses and Martin Guerre. Both of those stories deal with veterans who encounter resistance when they attempt reentry into a society that no longer recognizes the changes wrought by war on them. My stories deal with the psychic impairment that veterans carry back with them from the battlefields of WWII, Vietnam, as well as Cold War Germany. The major and minor characters in these stories often appear physically unchanged but their psychic wounds create an unintended tension when their families are forced to relive with them and cope with the stresses caused by the trauma of their experiences upon return to ‘domestic tranquility’.
In short, these stories’ characters give witness to the loss of innocence and the inability to adjust when relationships fall apart upon return from armed conflict in WWII, the Cold War in Europe, and the Vietnam War. Can these characters’ losses point the way to freedom from recycling the physical and psychic damage to human capital? Or do they simply predict the recurring reactions to ongoing conflicts in the world?
"Lost and Found" - Phish Publications, September, 9, 2006
"The Recruit" - SNReview, archived in 2005 summer
"A Veteran's Day" - Southern Ocean Review, Archive, #45, October 12, 2007
"Lost is a Place, Too" - Word Riot, June, 2007
"War's Stories" - Hiss Quarterly, archives, 2007
"For Sale" - Pequin, April 25, 2008
"The Celebration" - Loch Raven Review, Spring, 2008
"Exits" - Cantaraville, October, 2008
"Betrayal" - Istanbul Literary Review, January, 2008
"Lazarus Rising" - eMuse-zine, September, 2008
"Her Legacy" - Pen Pricks, October, 2008
"The Recruit" - Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, vol. 7, No. 4, October, 2008
"Woodfiber Dreams" - Prima Storia, May, 2009
"Gone But Not Forgotten" - Postcard Shorts, April 30, 2009
"Requiescat in Pacem" - Postcard Shorts, May 7, 2009
