2001 Frankfurt eBook Awards Finalist Talks to Planet eBook

Author of Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam, Paul Clayton, speaks about his eBook and the October 10 awards

By Planet eBook Editor
October 8, 2001

Carl Melcher Goes To Vietnam Planet eBook recently spoke to Paul Clayton, the author of Carl Melcher Goes To Vietnam, about his latest book and how he feels being nominated as a finalist in the prestigious 2001 Frankfurt eBook Awards. Paul's eBook is in the running to win the Author's Grand Prize (of $50,000) for best non-fiction eBook.

Planet eBook: Congratulations on your nomination as a finalist for the Frankfurt eBook Awards. You have described your Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam as being a unique book because it doesn't go into the blood and gore of war, but instead examines the affect on relationships influenced by the war. Why do you think your book may have been chosen as a finalist?

Paul Clayton: Perhaps because of the verisimilitude; perhaps because the reader gets to meet characters he or she normally would not, and gets to know them well, and to like them. Then, the reader has a stake in what happens to them. We want to connect, and I think readers will connect with this book. Perhaps because I worked very hard on it, putting everything I had into it, and I never bent it or shaped it to suit the latest publishing trend or fad. I stuck with my original vision.

PE: Can you give us a brief description of Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam?

PC: Carl Melcher... is about an almost-terminally naïve (given what's at stake) young man, drafted and sent to Vietnam, who sees life both at its absolute best, the view most American youth have in their teens, and at its absolute worst, the unfortunate reality for a lot of folks in other parts of the world. It is about the impermanence of life, as the Buddhist say. For a kid that grew up in 50s/60s America, it is quite a stark lesson. Carl learns, although slowly, and grows up a little, as did I.

PE: In an interview I read you said that a major reason why you write is so other people will understand you. Is that why Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam is important to you, because it explores your experiences in Vietnam as a young man, and shows how this has perhaps shaped you?

PC: Yes, partly. I'm one of those people who are not that adept at communicating verbally what is going on inside. Writing is a way to make up for that. And I guess at some level I would hope that those I know would get some insight into why I am the way I am. Also, I want to tickle or itch some part of their psyche, to try and get them to look at the world a little differently, to look a little deeper.

PE: How did you feel when you found out you were nominated for such a big award, alongside well-known authors like David McCullough and Steven Levy? What is interesting too is that yours was the only book to have been exclusively published in electronic form.

PC: I was astounded. Still am. Some tiny part of me keeps worrying that maybe this is all some cruel internet scam, and when I get to Frankfurt they'll say, "who are you? Clayton who?" But another part of me knows that this is a book affair, and Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam is a damn good book, e- or any other format, and that it should be a part of the National war literature canon. I always knew that Carl Melcher... was a good book, and that someday it would get a little recognition. But there were a lot of dark days, about 15 years worth before that happened. About three years ago, I managed to get Willie Morris (James Jones: a Friendship, My Dog Skip) to read an earlier iteration of the book, and he liked it enough to want to help me find a publisher. He sent it to one house under his own letterhead and they declined. He was going to send it to some other contacts he had when he died suddenly. Willie felt a sense of mission to help young writers, and he counseled and encouraged Winston Groom (Better Times Than These, Forest Gump), John Grisham (The Client) and several others. So when Willie told me he liked my book, I knew I should never give up on trying to get it into print (or on the Web.)

By the way, I haven't read Mr. Levy's book, nor Mr. McCullough's, but I have heard a lot about their work. I understand Mr. McCullough won a Pulitzer and that he has addressed the Congress of the United States. I've seen him on TV speaking about the state of the country since the terrorist attacks. His book, John Adams is a blockbuster success, having sold several million in hardback. In contrast, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam is only available on the web as an electronic book from ElectriceBookpublishing.com, and has sold only about ten (10) copies to date. By the way, I'm bringing one of Mr. McCullough's books to Frankfurt for him to sign, and one of Joyce Carol Oates'.

PE: Many mid-list and aspiring authors are very enthused these days with the possibilities that the Web, eBooks and electronic publishing offer -- I guess, the possibilities of greater creative freedom and more direct communication with one's readers. Do you have thoughts on these recent changes?

PC: I think that it's wonderful that these technologies have made every book available now, except, of course, books about how to conduct germ warfare, or how to make a small nuclear device in your garage. Amazon was the first to do this. They list books that sell, maybe one or two copies a year, right alongside books that sell one or two million copies a year. So all these books are available on the web to any one who wants them. The only problem is, you can't want something you don't even know exists. Now if, thousands of people around the world suddenly, mysteriously, sat up in their beds, the title, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam, fevering their brains, and they have access to the web, well they can get ahold of my book. So the web and eBooks has solved the availability problem, and that's great for the readers, and good for the writers to a lesser extent. The next problem to be solved, and I haven't figured it out yet, is how to alert readers all over the world to the availability of my book

PE: Your other books, Calling Crow, Flight of the Crow, and Calling Crow Nation, are available in paper and electronic form from e-reads. Are you planning to get Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam into print?

PC: Absolutely. The Frankfurt Book Fair is a very big affair. A lot of publishers and agents go there. I plan on doing all I can, aside from wearing a sign board, to let folks know that this book is available. The muses and Lady Luck have brought me this far, so I'll have to see what else they have in store.

PE: Are you working on a new book? Would you care to let us in on what you're currently writing?

PC: Two new books. I'm polishing my latest historical, Roanoke, about the abandoned English colony of the same name. It's more in the commercial vein, well plotted, good pacing, and it's also well researched and written from the heart, planted deep in the fecund soil of human conflict. My other book is about one quarter written. It is more in the literary vein, and is about the collapse of a middle class family in America, a dark tale set in sunny California. I hope to render well the world I've inhabited for the last fifteen or so years, to make a few points about life in modern America, to open a few eyes, not just entertain.

PE: No doubt the awards night will be an exciting night for you and the other finalists. Best of luck. Enjoy the night!


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About Paul Clayton
Paul Clayton was born in '48, drafted in '68, sent to Vietnam in September of the same year. He served with an infantry line company in the 4th Infantry Division, in the Central Highlands of Pleiku Province. After the army Mr. Clayton went to Temple University in Philadelphia, earning a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in '76. In '95 he published his first work of fiction. He currently lives and works in California.

His Carl Melcher Goes To Vietnam eBook was named as a finalist in the prestigious 2001 Frankfurt eBook Awards. Clayton also is a published author of three historical fiction novels: Calling Crow, Calling Crow Nation and Flight Of The Crow.