Book Description

An epic fiction drenched in reality. Devils Paintbrush tells the life story a young boy who grows up in a violent and abusive home within the Projects of Brooklyn, Baltimore during the 1960s. Then, as a young man, he once again finds himself in another hostile environment South Vietnam. Somehow he survives both worlds. Decades after receiving The Bronze Star in combat, Ken Callahans long suppressed memories and fractured emotions compel him to enter yet another threatening battlefield and engage a very different enemy a foe deadlier than any Viet Cong or bird-eating tarantula he ever confronted as a younger man. This new battlefield is the private office of the Veteran Administrations top PTSD clinician. His new enemy is himself. Within the relative safety of this clinicians office, Ken is reluctantly dragged-back in time to unearth decades of buried memories of war. Thats when the PTSD professional community becomes stunned as they discover Kens combat experience was not as lethal as the domestic violence and sexual abuse he endured at the hands of a disturbed older brother and sinfully wicked mother long before he even went to war. In short, Ken Callahans PTSD was deeply entrenched well before he stepped foot on the battlefields of South Vietnam. Discovering the truth about his own past proves to be challenging enough, but in order to accept such truth, Ken must cross a line from which there is no return. The man who ultimately emerges is not the same Bronze Star recipient who reluctantly enters PTSD treatment; nor are the people he touches along the way. Only the qualities of a Devils Paintbrush can provide the caliber of personal resilience needed throughout every step of Ken Callahans life-long journey. Readers of this fictionalized, true story will be either shocked and disgusted or enlightened and educated. There is no safe place between these two extremes.