Hemingway Days and Bukowski Nights (ePub)

Adam Blankenship, a young war correspondent embedded with the US Army is badly wounded during the early days of the Iraq War. In an attempt to save lives, he fired an auto-grenade gun to stop an inbound suicide truck bomber. His reward, returning to L.A. broken and angry after losing his job along with his lower right leg. Adam becomes a full-blown alcoholic with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who takes Vicodin to numb the pain. He embarks on a novel about covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might help him uncover the truth about why he was disgracefully fired from his job, then kicked out of the military hospital in Germany. It was likely because Adam ran afoul of the powerful Colonel Shilling, calling him out for chasing Jihadis into the desert rather than helping the dead and wounded after the ambush. He took what was left of their operational vehicles and security, abandoning the men. The colonel pressured authorities to classify the ambush and lawyers from the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) coerced Adam into signing a Non-disclosure Agreement, forcing Adam to disguise his true account of the war as fiction to please his nervous publisher.Sarah Murry, Adam's stepsister and forbidden first love, is a tall, green-eyed beauty. A B-movie actress filming a 1970's gangster movie starring one of the famous Goodwin brothers, she's not sure which one. Multitalented, she is also a painter who works long nights on large, abstract oils brimming with vibrant imagery, symbols, and pop-mythology. Sarah has loved Adam since he protected her from the mean girls in high school. She can see his struggle with pills and booze, but stands by him even after he brawls with her surfer boyfriend Johnny. They move into a hostel in Venice Beach then meet Bobby, a punk rock poet who hates the world. They become roommates, fast friends, and rivals as Adam fights to get his book published in full, risking jail time to get the truth out and clear his name.Hemingway Days and Bukowski Nights depicts three young artists who work just as hard as they play. It's also ponders the pain and stupidity of war, how to live with PTSD, carry the regrets and loss and try to live a better life after trauma. Let fear pass through you. Have the courage to tell the truth. Maybe, even find a chance at love.