“A Long Way Back” author and alumnus J. Everett Prewitt’s Vietnam War tale about black soldiers thought mysteriously killed in action received its fifth literary award: first place in historical fiction at the Independent Publishers of New England Conference late last year.
Prewitt, a 1966 Lincoln graduate, Vietnam veteran, and former Army officer, received the Seal of Approval from Literary Classics, the Bronze Award at Foreword Magazine’s 2016 INDIES Awards, a Benjamin Franklin Award from the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Silver Award from Literary Classics and was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Awards.
He attributes the novel’s success to the story’s ability to engage and educate people and the reward for his diligence after his debut novel, “Snake Walkers,” which also won multiple awards.
“There were a number of incidents that took place in Vietnam with brothers who came over there in the Civil Rights Movement that was swept under the rug,” says Prewitt, who lives in the Shaker Heights community of Cleveland, Ohio. “They were different from the brothers who had been there just ‘getting on to get-along.’ They were questioning authority and treatment.”
The 74-year-old Prewitt explains that the central incident of the novel regarding a black battalion threatened with an unjust punishment for inciting a race riot was true, and taken directly from his own experience,
but whether or not the punishment was actually carried out, what was to follow, and the geographic location was not.
In real life, he says a dispute erupted between 300-plus white soldiers and 70 black soldiers. They were subsequently arrested when he had just taken over the battalion. A white colonel threatened to send solely the black soldiers to the front lines since (they) “liked to fight so much” despite the fact they were supply clerks and other non-combat soldiers.
In the end, he adds, it was unclear what punishment was actually dispensed.“
A lot of books are based on what-ifs,” Prewitt says. “Their journey is all fictional.”
He also says he changed the location of the incident from Cam Ranh Bay to Coo Chi, which put it closer to Cambodia and the fighting there. Prewitt says he served in both locations.
His sequel to “A Long Way Back” is a novella and collection of short stories, “Something About Ann,” which chronicles the lives of the various black soldiers in that book. The novella, which the book’s title is derived, follows one of the soldiers and a Vietnamese woman who meet at a party and develop a romance years later back in the States, never realizing they were former combatants.
“Something About Ann” is expected to be published this spring.
