Although I didn’t serve, the Vietnam War was a defining event for my generation: nightly news reports with grim body counts, a military draft littered with loopholes that was later replaced by a starkly random lottery system, scattered protests morphing into mass demonstrations threatening to split the nation. It was a tumultuous time to come of age.

I learned of Operation Babylift over twenty years ago and immediately imagined what the life of  an American soldier and Vietnamese orphan might look like years after the war’s last shots were fired. What happened to them? Who did they become? It’s taken me this long to feel confident enough to tell their stories.

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To better understand what my characters might have experienced, I immersed myself in research before a single word of A Confluence of Fates was written. This included reading memoirs, historical accounts, and novels, as well as watching countless hours of documentaries about the Vietnam War. Additionally, I was lucky enough to interview several people who shared their stories, including Operation Babylift pilots and orphans, Vietnam combat veterans, and others whose lives intersected with the events depicted in this book.

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When people ask how much research goes into writing a historical novel, my answer is always, "More than you can imagine." One book led to another, documentaries provoked more questions, and interviews opened doors to stories and experiences I’d never heard about before. Before long, I was swimming in facts, dates, and details, shedding many tears along the way. Very few events, at least for me, were and continue to be as complex and emotionally charged as the Vietnam War.

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After months immersed with the generals and politicians, with the historians and commentators, I finally started hearing Richie and Linh’s voices. I found myself wondering less about historical events and their details, and more about how two ordinary people, a young soldier and an orphan, navigated life long after the war was over.  What scars, seen and unseen, remained? Which memories refused to go away? Which ones hid behind protective veils? I needed to listen to my characters, get inside their heads, feel their fears and desires, and share their tears.

 

That’s when I stopped gathering facts and figures about the Vietnam War and Operation Babylift.

 

I was finally ready to tell their story.

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