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An Emotional Review of “Nor the Years Condemn” by Justin Sheedy in Australian Pilot Magazine – by Australian Pilot & Journalist, Kathy Mexted
BOOK REVIEW – Australian Pilot Magazine, issue June 2012.
NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN
Author: Justin Sheedy
Reviewed by: Kathy Mexted
A non-flyer’s ten-year journey to unearth the story of Australia’s WWII fighter pilots has culminated in a self-published novel, which has redirected Kathy Mexted’s reading habits.
Review by Kathy Mexted
At the informed age of 21, I stood in the kitchen and announced to my mother that I was going to work in an embassy overseas for two years. She stopped peeling the potatoes and turned to face me with a forced smile. As the fifth of eight kids, I didn’t think she’d miss me that much.
Six months ago, my son waggled a RAAF application form under my nose, seeking a signature. I wouldn’t sign. I wanted to rewind, to our first house where we sat by the fire and watched “Space Camp” and he dressed in an astronaut suit and sunglasses and flipped his little chair on its back to talk to Houston while pushing imaginary buttons on an imaginary overhead console. Hadn’t we just finished paying for his swimming lessons? Hadn’t he just learnt how to ride a motorbike? L plates. A few flying lessons. Boarding school and year 12 looming. I stopped frying the onions and shrieked, “My first born? Why don’t I just give them your HEAD on a PLATTER?”
He laughed and waggled the form again, and I signed and felt like somebody was stealing from me. Suddenly I was my mother.
An hour later (the kids must have been feeding themselves by then), the electronic version of a book for my review plopped into my email. As I dialled the author, I scrolled through the first couple of chapters and dissolved into tears when I got to the part about the recently graduated RAAF pilot arriving home for Christmas and greeting his mother. “…and in that instant she knew she had lost her Danny.”
So a rather surprised Justin Sheedy answered the phone to “Hello, it’s Kathy Mexted, I just have to get a glass of water.” His timing had been perfect.
After that, “Nor the Years Condemn” sat on my shelf because I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Meanwhile my son enjoyed flying lessons, sat an RAAF entrance exam, topped his class for physics, and generally got on with life. It took me five months to pick up the book, and I read it in three days. What a ripper!
I’m not really one for war stories, but this fictional account of Daniel Quinn’s journey from university student, through his application, acceptance and training with the RAAF during WWII, right up to the end of the war in England, is informative, entertaining and fast. Not given to the normal long-winded indulgence of some novelists, Justin moves the story along more like a film, often replaying a scene to give the viewpoint from another side. A child on the ground, a priest, a medico, a commanding officer.
The nature of the story allows Justin to introduce many colourful characters, and include the background and emotions of Quinn’s family and neighbours, particularly his mother, who at one point is peeling onions at the kitchen sink and looks like she’s been punched.
As I occasionally quizzed my husband about certain aircraft, he would ask, “What’s the context?” I’d read a passage and he’d say, “Keep reading. You can’t stop now. They’re in the middle of the battle!” He was as hooked as I was.
So what makes a ‘non-flier’ want to write such a book?
Justin, like many of us prior to having our first lessons, is enamoured by the idea of the unnatural sensation of flight – something meant for birds. And secondly, as a history buff, to bring to life a memorable chapter in our history. The beginnings are very clear for Justin, who says, “It’s a story so impossibly dramatic and exhilarating, it seems like science fiction. It beggars belief, and yet it actually happened.”
Here’s how he described the beginning of the project.
“About ten years ago, I met a man in a department store in Sydney. He was wearing a striking lapel pin with very distinct gold wings. He said it was the badge of the Royal Australian Air Force Association. He’d been a Mustang pilot in Korea.
“With my own prior interest in such things, I immediately knew this man had flown ground attack missions, which in the Korean War – just as in World War II – was the most dangerous air combat job of all. It meant extreme low- level ground straffing, bombing and rocket firing on enemy positions all of whom were firing right back at you. And in Korea, the Mustang pilots had to fly at break-neck speed up river valleys while being shot at from above by North Korean and Chinese soldiers on the surrounding hillsides. The man confirmed that his job had indeed been ground attack but the most amazing thing was that he looked me square in the eye and said, ‘Justin. It was the best time of my life.’ And I thought, ‘My God. This kind and friendly sort of man had dished out death, must have passed within a hair’s breadth of his own death on countless occasions, must have seen close friends ripped from life and probably great friends too because they would have been top blokes – just like him, the type of really bright young men, the ones of exceptional character who were picked to become fighter pilots.
“And I thought, ‘I have to write about this. About this monumental irony that something so terrible can be remembered so fondly.”
“He even enthused to me, seriously, with a gleam of affection in his eye, how beautiful his Mustang had been – like a still-cherished first girlfriend. And I thought, ‘this is a story crying to be told.’”
Despite having only flown a few joy flights including in a Tiger Moth and a glider, Justin’s research included Kittyhawk, Lancaster, Liberator and Aircrew Oxford pilots and a Liberator gunner.
“I wanted to write a fiction story in a way to bring the true history alive for readers. But I wanted to write a story that would be faithful to the history on which it was based.”
Unusually for a war story, there are a few strong female characters including Quinn’s two girlfriends (one an admin officer and the other a spy), and his mother.
Justin says, “For every shining young boy who flew a Spitfire there was a mother with her heart torn out at having to let him go.”
NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN by Justin Sheedy is available as Print-on-Demand Paperback at AMAZON and as an eBook in all eBook formats at SMASHWORDS and at all major eBook websites and DYMOCKS nationwide.
See this Article at Crackernight.com
http://crackernight.com/2012/06/18/an...
NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN
Author: Justin Sheedy
Reviewed by: Kathy Mexted
A non-flyer’s ten-year journey to unearth the story of Australia’s WWII fighter pilots has culminated in a self-published novel, which has redirected Kathy Mexted’s reading habits.
Review by Kathy Mexted
At the informed age of 21, I stood in the kitchen and announced to my mother that I was going to work in an embassy overseas for two years. She stopped peeling the potatoes and turned to face me with a forced smile. As the fifth of eight kids, I didn’t think she’d miss me that much.
Six months ago, my son waggled a RAAF application form under my nose, seeking a signature. I wouldn’t sign. I wanted to rewind, to our first house where we sat by the fire and watched “Space Camp” and he dressed in an astronaut suit and sunglasses and flipped his little chair on its back to talk to Houston while pushing imaginary buttons on an imaginary overhead console. Hadn’t we just finished paying for his swimming lessons? Hadn’t he just learnt how to ride a motorbike? L plates. A few flying lessons. Boarding school and year 12 looming. I stopped frying the onions and shrieked, “My first born? Why don’t I just give them your HEAD on a PLATTER?”
He laughed and waggled the form again, and I signed and felt like somebody was stealing from me. Suddenly I was my mother.
An hour later (the kids must have been feeding themselves by then), the electronic version of a book for my review plopped into my email. As I dialled the author, I scrolled through the first couple of chapters and dissolved into tears when I got to the part about the recently graduated RAAF pilot arriving home for Christmas and greeting his mother. “…and in that instant she knew she had lost her Danny.”
So a rather surprised Justin Sheedy answered the phone to “Hello, it’s Kathy Mexted, I just have to get a glass of water.” His timing had been perfect.
After that, “Nor the Years Condemn” sat on my shelf because I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Meanwhile my son enjoyed flying lessons, sat an RAAF entrance exam, topped his class for physics, and generally got on with life. It took me five months to pick up the book, and I read it in three days. What a ripper!
I’m not really one for war stories, but this fictional account of Daniel Quinn’s journey from university student, through his application, acceptance and training with the RAAF during WWII, right up to the end of the war in England, is informative, entertaining and fast. Not given to the normal long-winded indulgence of some novelists, Justin moves the story along more like a film, often replaying a scene to give the viewpoint from another side. A child on the ground, a priest, a medico, a commanding officer.
The nature of the story allows Justin to introduce many colourful characters, and include the background and emotions of Quinn’s family and neighbours, particularly his mother, who at one point is peeling onions at the kitchen sink and looks like she’s been punched.
As I occasionally quizzed my husband about certain aircraft, he would ask, “What’s the context?” I’d read a passage and he’d say, “Keep reading. You can’t stop now. They’re in the middle of the battle!” He was as hooked as I was.
So what makes a ‘non-flier’ want to write such a book?
Justin, like many of us prior to having our first lessons, is enamoured by the idea of the unnatural sensation of flight – something meant for birds. And secondly, as a history buff, to bring to life a memorable chapter in our history. The beginnings are very clear for Justin, who says, “It’s a story so impossibly dramatic and exhilarating, it seems like science fiction. It beggars belief, and yet it actually happened.”
Here’s how he described the beginning of the project.
“About ten years ago, I met a man in a department store in Sydney. He was wearing a striking lapel pin with very distinct gold wings. He said it was the badge of the Royal Australian Air Force Association. He’d been a Mustang pilot in Korea.
“With my own prior interest in such things, I immediately knew this man had flown ground attack missions, which in the Korean War – just as in World War II – was the most dangerous air combat job of all. It meant extreme low- level ground straffing, bombing and rocket firing on enemy positions all of whom were firing right back at you. And in Korea, the Mustang pilots had to fly at break-neck speed up river valleys while being shot at from above by North Korean and Chinese soldiers on the surrounding hillsides. The man confirmed that his job had indeed been ground attack but the most amazing thing was that he looked me square in the eye and said, ‘Justin. It was the best time of my life.’ And I thought, ‘My God. This kind and friendly sort of man had dished out death, must have passed within a hair’s breadth of his own death on countless occasions, must have seen close friends ripped from life and probably great friends too because they would have been top blokes – just like him, the type of really bright young men, the ones of exceptional character who were picked to become fighter pilots.
“And I thought, ‘I have to write about this. About this monumental irony that something so terrible can be remembered so fondly.”
“He even enthused to me, seriously, with a gleam of affection in his eye, how beautiful his Mustang had been – like a still-cherished first girlfriend. And I thought, ‘this is a story crying to be told.’”
Despite having only flown a few joy flights including in a Tiger Moth and a glider, Justin’s research included Kittyhawk, Lancaster, Liberator and Aircrew Oxford pilots and a Liberator gunner.
“I wanted to write a fiction story in a way to bring the true history alive for readers. But I wanted to write a story that would be faithful to the history on which it was based.”
Unusually for a war story, there are a few strong female characters including Quinn’s two girlfriends (one an admin officer and the other a spy), and his mother.
Justin says, “For every shining young boy who flew a Spitfire there was a mother with her heart torn out at having to let him go.”
NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN by Justin Sheedy is available as Print-on-Demand Paperback at AMAZON and as an eBook in all eBook formats at SMASHWORDS and at all major eBook websites and DYMOCKS nationwide.
See this Article at Crackernight.com
http://crackernight.com/2012/06/18/an...
Podcast Interview with Justin Sheedy, Author of “Nor the Years Condemn”
Hear Kathy Mexted, Australian pilot, media presenter, journalist and mother, offer her heartfelt “Mother’s” response to my latest book,
Nor the Years Condemn
, on our recent podcast interview on the Plane Crazy Downunder Show hosted by pilot Steve Visscher. Click the following link to listen to the full interview podcast, Plane Crazy episode entitled “Moments in Time”. http://crackernight.com/2012/07/08/po...
It was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation between the three of us, where Kathy portrays her quite emotional response to the book which she recently reviewed for Australian Pilot Magazine. Click the following link for her full review of Nor the Years Condemn .
http://crackernight.com/2012/06/18/an...
As the author of this story, an historical fiction based on the stunning true Australian story of how the best & brightest of a generation ironically picked one of the fastest ways to die of World War II – flying Spitfires against Nazi Germany, it’s particularly rewarding for me to hear the brilliant way in which someone like Kathy has engaged with the story. Kathy calls it “a gripping read which she just couldn’t put down”, going into full detail of how, as a mother, she so personally related to the book: Not only is
Nor the Years Condemn
a story of gripping World War II air combat, it’s also a tragic portrait of the fact that for every shining young man exceptional enough to fly a Spitfire there was a mother cursed to let him go. So it was an amazing coincidence that Kathy’s own son applied to join the modern-day Royal Australian Air Force at exact time she was reading the book.In addition to this lovely response to the book from Kathy, as well as from many other female readers, it’s also a massive relief for me to hear, as testified to in the interview, that Kathy’s husband – a Qantas Pilot and World War II history buff – also fully engaged with the book and gave it his thorough ‘thumbs up’ from his particular ‘expert’ point of view.
So my most sincere thanks to Kathy Mexted, Steve Visscher and all at Plane Crazy Downunder for having me on their show.
Nor the Years Condemn is currently available at DYMOCKS, George St Sydney (see the link)...
http://www.dymocks.com.au/ProductDeta...
Also as a print-on-demand paperback at AMAZON, and as an ebook at SMASHWORDS.
Justin Sheedy, July 2012.
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