From Publishers Weekly
In December 1965, David Spears said good-bye to his wife and three children and went to fight in Vietnam; he returned "in a cargo plane full of caskets" in July 1966. His family has never been the same. "He was the center of what made me feel safe," Zacharias, then in third grade, explains. Her mother cried nonstop and never spoke of her beloved again. There wasn't much time for grief, anyway. Spears's paltry life insurance money was soon gone, and Zacharias's mother was a high school dropout living in a cramped trailer home in Tennessee with three kids. She put herself through nursing school while working and raising those youngsters. Although Zacharias's brother struggled with drugs and the teenage Zacharias had to have an abortion before realizing getting pregnant wasn't the best way to find reliable love, they all turned out fine eventually. Readers may enjoy Zacharias's mom's trailer park smarts (a woman's best protection is "a good padded bra") and her colorful Southern-isms (her hungover brother was "sicker than a yard dog with scours"). But while Zacharias entertains, her main point—that a soldier's death brings pain and sorrow to many generations of his family—is a sad truth that Americans are beginning to relearn. Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Zacharias' moving memoir opens in July 1966 with the arrival of a jeep bearing news of her father's death in Vietnam, a loss that affected Karen and her siblings all the way into adulthood. Karen was especially in need of nurturing following her father's death; unfortunately her mother reacted by withdrawing from her children, throwing herself into her work, and acquiring numerous boyfriends. So Karen looked to others for support: a grandfather who soon suffers a stroke; youth leaders at church, who later move away; and a boyfriend who abandons her when she becomes pregnant. After college Karen and her mother resolve their contentious relationship, and soon after, Karen begins to seek out the details of her father's death--details her mother could never face. Zacharias' research leads her to an organization called Sons and Daughters in Touch, which brings together adult children of those killed in Vietnam. Her subsequent 2003 journey with members of the group to the very spot where her father died finally concludes her long and emotional quest. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Portland Oregonian
"Bittersweet"
Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE...AND YOUNG
"Karen Spears Zacharias has written a dead-honest, raw-edged memoir . . . wonderfully told"
Pat Conroy, author of the New York Times bestsellers BEACH MUSIC and THE PRINCE OF TIDES
"One of the most original, heartbreaking and off-the-nose books about the Vietnam experience ever written . . . brilliant"
Silas House, Author of Clay's Quilt and The Coal Tatoo
"A beautiful and important book . . . Hero Mama will stay with me always."
Book Description
I don't remember Mama crying when Granny Ruth died, but the day after she was buried, Mama gathered together all the pillows in the house and went into the room where her mother's foot-pedaled sewing machine stood silent. Taking a pair of black-handled scissors, she cut open the tops of Granny's pillows. Aunt Blanche asked Mama what in Jehoshaphat's name did she think she was doing, cutting up all the pillows like that. Mama answered something about finding a crown inside one of those pillows Granny Ruth had fashioned from chicken feathers.
"Sometimes," she explained, "when a person sleeps on a pillow for a long time the feathers will mold together to make a crown ..."
It's the 1960s and nine-year-old Karen Spears is living in a trailer in middle Georgia. Her father, David Spears, was killed in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam, and left behind three young children and a wife with a ninth-grade education. Hero Mama is the gritty, searing, and beautifully written story of what happened to this Southern family in the aftermath of a soldier's death.
At first the widow Spears appeared to fall apart -- turning herself into a beer-guzzling, good-time girl, while her children responded in kind. Eventually she recognized how much her children needed her and, with mule-headed tenacity, she earned her nursing degree and bought the family a real home fashioned from bricks, rising above her own flaws to forge a better life for her kids. Now Karen Spears Zacharias pays tribute to this woman of guts and determination -- her Hero Mama -- who battled overwhelming adversity to pull her family up and make them proud of her, and of themselves.
Hero Mama is also the story of the South, where a young girl grew up against an emotionally charged landscape of racism and bigotry, where the daughter of a fallen soldier had to face the stigma of a war nobody wanted, and where a family in crisis pulled together to achieve its own version of the American dream. It is a triumphant tale of reconciliation between a daughter and her father, a daughter and her nation, and a daughter and the people of Vietnam. It is a story for any daughter who has loved her father -- and for any daughter who has had to discover how deeply her mother really loves her.
Hero Mama: A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost in Vietnam -- and the Mother Who Held Her Family Together FROM THE PUBLISHER
"It's the 1960s and nine-year-old Karen Spears is living in a trailer in middle Georgia. Her father, David Spears, was killed in the la Drang Valley in Vietnam, and left behind three young children and a wife with a ninth-grade education. Hero Mama is the story of what happened to this Southern family in the aftermath of a soldier's death." "At first the widow Spears appeared to fall apart - turning herself into a beer-guzzling, good-time girl, while her children responded in kind. Eventually she recognized how much her children needed her and, with mule-headed tenacity, she earned her nursing degree and bought the family a real home fashioned from bricks, rising above her own flaws to forge a better life for her kids. Now Karen Spears Zacharias pays tribute to this woman of guts and determination - her Hero Mama - who battled overwhelming adversity to pull her family up and make them proud of her, and of themselves." Hero Mama is also the story of the South, where a young girl grew up against an emotionally charged landscape of racism and bigotry, where the daughter of a fallen soldier had to face the stigma of a war nobody wanted, and where a family in crisis pulled together to achieve its own version of the American dream.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In December 1965, David Spears said good-bye to his wife and three children and went to fight in Vietnam; he returned "in a cargo plane full of caskets" in July 1966. His family has never been the same. "He was the center of what made me feel safe," Zacharias, then in third grade, explains. Her mother cried nonstop and never spoke of her beloved again. There wasn't much time for grief, anyway. Spears's paltry life insurance money was soon gone, and Zacharias's mother was a high school dropout living in a cramped trailer home in Tennessee with three kids. She put herself through nursing school while working and raising those youngsters. Although Zacharias's brother struggled with drugs and the teenage Zacharias had to have an abortion before realizing getting pregnant wasn't the best way to find reliable love, they all turned out fine eventually. Readers may enjoy Zacharias's mom's trailer park smarts (a woman's best protection is "a good padded bra") and her colorful Southern-isms (her hungover brother was "sicker than a yard dog with scours"). But while Zacharias entertains, her main point-that a soldier's death brings pain and sorrow to many generations of his family-is a sad truth that Americans are beginning to relearn. Photos. Agent, Carole Bidnick. (On sale Jan. 18) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In this intimate memoir, Zacharias, an award-winning journalist, celebrates her parents: father David Spears, who died in 1966 while serving in Vietnam, and mother Shelby Spears, who was left to raise three young children. The author remembers life growing up without a father, moving from one trailer park to another, as her mother tried as best she could to keep herself and her family together. Shelby is portrayed not as a saint but rather a real person with both flaws and assets. For comfort, she often turned to men and alcohol, yet she studied and worked long hours to put herself through nursing school in order to give her family a better life. As a child, Zacharias did not always think that Shelby made the best parenting decisions, yet Shelby was always willing to lend a hand to those in need, often taking in relatives who had nowhere else to go. Although her story is often grim and tear-inducing, the author celebrates her family and speaks with a genuine and true voice. Recommended for all public libraries.-Sarah Jent, Univ. of Louisville Lib., KY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The daughter of a soldier killed in Vietnam graphically chronicles the permanent wounds his death inflicted on his family. While she honors all those who like her father served their country in that war, Zacharias is more intent on writing about the pain that war inflicts, not its inherent morality. In the summer of 1966, when she learned of her husband's death, Shelby Spears was living in a trailer in rural Tennessee with son Frankie, middle child Karen (the author, then a third-grader), and baby Linda. Shelby dropped out of tenth grade in 1953 to marry David, a career soldier who reached the rank of staff sergeant. She liked life as a military wife: she enjoyed being stationed in places like Germany and Hawaii; she found that other families on the bases were always supportive; and health services and schooling were readily available. After David's death, however, her own family was little help as she struggled with her grief and the problems of raising three children on her own. Zacharias describes moving to Georgia and living in a succession of dingy trailer courts while her mother completed high school, went on to nursing school, and finally earned enough to buy a house for the family. But her success came at considerable cost. Shelby had a number of affairs, often bringing strangers home at night. She left the children alone to fend for themselves while she worked or partied. And she never talked about their father, which hurt the most. Frank turned to drugs, and Karen, though a devout Christian, became pregnant in high school and had an abortion. The family survived, but it was a long and rough haul. They remained haunted by their father's death, which Zacharias hints may haveresulted from friendly fire. The author continues to be active in Vietnam veterans' affairs. Though the family's plight is overdetailed, the current war with Iraq gives their story particular relevance. Book-of-the-Month Club/Literary Guild featured alternate selection. Agent: Carole Bidnick/Bidnick & Co.
Art & Photography
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