Feast for Thieves (38 page)

Use of “real” as an adjective (instead of “really”)
 

Darrell Powers: “We were going to take the town, but we got there real late and didn’t have time to do it before dark.”

Upbeat and optimistic language:

Robert Van Klinken [in a letter home]: “Say Johnny, I bought another guitar the other day. Gave 30 bucks for it. It sure is a honey.”

Humorous, self-deprecating language:

Sid Phillips: “We were so stupid, we’d never heard of Parris Island [the Marine Corps Recruiting Station in South Carolina]. I think that recruiting sergeant told us we’d have a short training at a beautiful resort. We were rapidly sorry within the first few hours that we were there.”

Sentences beginning with “well”:

Sterling Mace: “Well, if you can’t play ball, you don’t stay with the ball team. So they sent me over to the post troops, which is a different duty every day.”

Note also that many of the WWII vets I’ve spoken with mix expletives in with their speech, although the expletives are used more for emphasis than to actually curse. I figured that Rowdy would filter the cussing out of his speech patterns due to his new profession.

THANKS

D
eborah Keiser and the team at River North Fiction. Greg Johnson and the WordServe Literary Group. Early readers H. C. Jones, Robert Craddock, Karen Sue Clark, Elizabeth Jones, and Becky Kimball. The men of Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st and their families. The Marines of K/3/5, H/2/1, and D/1/7 and their families. The University of North Texas libraries. Clint Whitwer. Matt Weeda. The people of Dallas, Houston, Austin, Plano, Bonton, Galveston, (and Texas in general) for your hospitality during research trips. Mike and Judy Albin, Graham and Dorothy Brotherton, Paul and Renay Fredette for your vision in sponsorship. Mary Margaret, Addy, Zach, and Amie-Merrin for your love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M
arcus Brotherton
is a journalist and professional writer, the author or coauthor of more than twenty-five books. Many of his books center on the veterans who fought in World War II, what they stood for, and their struggles and triumphs upon returning home. Notable nonfiction includes
Shifty’s War
,
A Company of Heroes
, and the oral history project
We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories from the Band of Brothers
, a
New York Times
bestseller.
Feast for Thieves
is his first novel.

Marcus was born in 1968 in Canada, the son of a minister father and a journalist mother. He studied theology and writing and earned a bachelor’s degree from Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon, and a master’s degree from Talbot Seminary at Biola University in Los Angeles. He served in pastoral ministry in rural church settings for nearly a decade before turning to a career in writing full-time. Marcus lives with his wife and children in Bellingham, Washington.

Read his blog:
www.marcusbrotherton.com
.

* * *

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