Notes from the Other Side of the Mountain

By turns tender, gritty, and poignant, Gary Reed’s tale of love in a time of war follows him from the quiet security of a mountain village in the Southwest, through the destruction and carnage he witnesses onboard an aircraft carrier operating off Vietnam, and as he returns to the mountains he loves, where he hopes to recover from his traumatic experiences and restore meaning to his life by reuniting with Kristina Preston, his high school sweetheart. Yet, he and Kristy discover that the brutal consequences of war have spread even into the remote mountains of New Mexico, concealing menace within the shadows of their imagined Eden.

By turns tender, gritty, and poignant, Gary Reed’s tale of love in a time of war follows him from the quiet security of a mountain village in the Southwest, through the destruction and carnage he witnesses onboard an aircraft carrier operating off Vietnam, and as he returns to the mountains he loves, where he hopes to recover from his traumatic experiences and restore meaning to his life by reuniting with Kristina Preston, his high school sweetheart. Yet, he and Kristy discover that the brutal consequences of war have spread even into the remote mountains of New Mexico, concealing menace within the shadows of their imagined Eden.

J. Allen Whitt is a Vietnam veteran, and an author who has won national awards for both fiction and nonfiction. Following three combat deployments to the Gulf of Tonkin aboard an aircraft carrier, he obtained a Ph.D from the University of California, taught and published social science research for many years, and is now a retired Professor Emeritus. A world traveler who prefers the open skies of the Southwest, he lives with his wife Melinda in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he is a member of SouthWest Writers.