After being held captive for three years, Kelly Allen Chase is brought back from the jungles of Vietnam. In this strange new world in 1971, his Indian family in Montana is nowhere to be found. Before the war, he was engaged, but his betrothed has moved on and married someone else. He faces a long, psychological, and physical rehabilitation. His odds for survival look bleak.
While Kelly struggles coming to terms with his newfound freedom, a young songstress struggles with explosive fame, fortune, and a loveless existence that is sowing the seeds of her destruction. They come together for the first time in an unexpected meeting that leaves them both with a memory they cannot shake.
Two years later they oddly meet again only to rediscover their enduring connection. This is a story about war, tragedy, grief, lost love, and found love. It offers each of us a look at a power greater than ourselves that exists in this life…and maybe the next.
After being held captive for three years, Kelly Allen Chase is brought back from the jungles of Vietnam. In this strange new world in 1971, his Indian family in Montana is nowhere to be found. Before the war, he was engaged, but his betrothed has moved on and married someone else. He faces a long, psychological, and physical rehabilitation. His odds for survival look bleak.
While Kelly struggles coming to terms with his newfound freedom, a young songstress struggles with explosive fame, fortune, and a loveless existence that is sowing the seeds of her destruction. They come together for the first time in an unexpected meeting that leaves them both with a memory they cannot shake.
Two years later they oddly meet again only to rediscover their enduring connection. This is a story about war, tragedy, grief, lost love, and found love. It offers each of us a look at a power greater than ourselves that exists in this life…and maybe the next.
June 1971, jungle setting small shadowy clearing, some sun spotting through. Birds chirping, screeching. Villagers moving around slowly. Sudden explosions, more to follow. Havoc, bodies flying, yelling, screaming in foreign language, small automatic weapons firing, more explosions. American troops in quick motions sweeping into Village shooting and capturing inhabitants. Radio communications crackling back and forth. “street gang, street gang confirm Ishackle, Ishackle H.I. fire mission over…radio crackling a response… authenticate Ishackle over.” A young lieutenant responded with a string of numbers and letters. The response crackled. “Street gang, street gang you have ten mikes, fire mission out.” “Everybody out Arty is coming in get moving fast! Didi mau” yelled the young lieutenant.
A sweaty soldier with no uniform shirt wearing only a flak jacket and a sweaty olive drab green towel around his neck lowered his sawed-off shotgun barrel and cautiously lifted the bamboo hatch covering the ground. He slowly peered over the edge of the opening, as his eyes widened. “Fuck me!” he exclaimed. “Sarge over here, quick!” he yelled. Two other GIs gathered and looked down wide eyed.
The shallow cage revealed an emaciated, disgustingly filthy man. He was nearly naked streaked and smeared with his own excrement. He was clothed in dirty rags, his patchy blonde hair was gouged and revealed bare splotches of scalp with a deep wound, blood oozing and streaking his face. He slowly raised his hands against the light, his blinking, deep blue, azure eyes looked more dead than alive. He made only low moaning guttural noises.
A burly man in a sweat drenched fatigue uniform joined the others. He looked down and with slow realization became wide-eyed, he started yelling, “Jesus jumped up Christ! Get him outta there and be careful!” Three men gently lifted him out of the buried bamboo cage. As they pulled him to freedom, they realized that he was almost like picking up a small child. They saw the open sores all over his body and the deep lash wounds crisscrossing his back, oozing and pus filled. Maggots were hanging from the open wounds, as the putrefied mess sent one of the men reeling and gagging.
The man was hoisted onto a makeshift litter and moved to an LZ some distance away. He was loaded into the Huey chopper along with other solders and started to ascend as two other choppers quickly moved in.
Saving KC is an account of persistence and endurance. It is the story of a boy's fortunes that accidentally put him on specific paths - the path of his love life and, subsequently, his professional life. With his commitment and courage, Kelly Alan Chase proves himself the best love partner and a trustworthy military person who does not give away during his prison in the forests of Vietnam. The state rescue mission puts him back to his previous life with lost love, family, and a damaged personality – unable to find a way to live everyday life. Hence, he stumbles upon a new path of love and career and navigates his way through the blessings and challenges of his new life.
This novel is articulated in a very coherent and well-knitted way. The dramatic narration could hook the readers till the end of the story - offering enough food for imagination to the readers. The unique and exciting aspect of the novel is that it accentuates the Indian roots and ancestry of the Chase family. However, it resonates with the old Indian culture and the modern lifestyle, portraying it as a beautiful blend of indigenization and universalism of human life challenges.
However, the characterization in the novel seems too idealistic at some points. One can never see the color of negativity in characters throughout the storytelling. The only intriguing character, KC's mother, has not been focused enough, and one might wonder to think about any backstory or rationalization of her behavior towards her daughter. Likewise, KC, suffering from a disorder, has not been given enough space to reason out her illness and the complexity of her relationship with her mother. Likewise, it sounds ironic that the novel is named after the struggle of Kelly Alan Chase to help KC, her second love of life, in dealing with her problems. It shadows the miseries and struggles of Kelly's previous life, especially his time in prison and how he coped with the challenges of returning to everyday life. Yet one should not miss this read. It holds many flavors and colors. The diversity of its plot provides the reader with a different taste in each story's turn. It is indeed an exciting read and suggested to those who want to take their minds off the environs for a while.