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Curse of the Coloring Book: A Novel Inspired by a True Story
When Herald Lloyd, an attorney and family man, learns he’s been cursed with a catastrophic legal-malpractice lawsuit, his recurring Vietnam War flashbacks flood his consciousness, and he medicates his post-traumatic stress with alcohol. He was reckless to quit college to join the Army. Mocking the war, he bought a GI Joe Coloring Book and half-gallon of whiskey, for a drunken send-off with his fraternity brothers. Vietnam hurls Herald into becoming a decorated combat platoon leader, commanding stressed oddballs and misfits like Dogman, who walks point and only barks to communicate. Now he must fight again, this time to save his client, law practice, and family. Was the coloring book cursed?
384 pages, Paperback
Published December 20, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 25, 2017
He made a mistake and it may cost him everything his law practice, his reputation, his home and possibly his family. One omission on an otherwise brilliant document for a case he had won for his client and now his world is almost as chaotic emotionally as it was all those years ago in the rice paddies and steam of Vietnam. Herald Lloyd is in trouble, his PTSD, his alcoholism and his life are spinning out of control and he is caught in the vortex of the maelstrom as the horrors and flashbacks of the past collide with the present situation he has created himself, quite accidentally.
Follow the harrowing and heartbreaking story of one man’s journey to Hell and discover how he never really came back, no matter how many years and miles separate him from the death and the terror of being a soldier in Vietnam. We are taken to those battlefields, told of the blood, the sweat and the heart-wrenching losses followed by the guilt of feeling responsible for some of those darkest moments when a “brother” is lost. We will feel the self-imposed guilt of being a survivor, the fall into the mind numbing bliss of alcohol and the loss of the innocence Herald can never get back.
Share the gallows humor of men whose lives could be gone in an instant, watch as their inner selves implode, leaving only the soldier who would die for those around them one minute and quake in fear the next. What makes a man a hero? After reading CURSE OF THE COLORING BOOK by Howard L. Hibard clearly a man is a hero if through all of the horrors he must witness and even inflict, he can still find just a little more to give for those around him.
This fictionalized true story is gut-wrenching and NO ONE who has not lived it can truly understand what this author is talking about. Those of us who know or love someone who came home from Vietnam or any war have stood by helplessly as we have watched the aftermath. No matter your personal beliefs, read this, meet these soldiers, mere boys who are sent to do what the politicians won’t. Anyone can declare war, or as in the case of Vietnam, “not war” but only a real hero can crawl through the death and hope to survive and no hero should have to deal with the emotional aftermath. And PTSD is real.
If you read anything out of your comfort zone this year, I highly recommend CURSE OF THE COLORING BOOK as well as E. Michael Helms’ THE PRIVATE WAR OF CORPORAL HENSON
I am voluntarily reviewing this copy sent from Howard L. Hibbard.
Publisher: Ghost Dog Enterprises, Inc. (October 5, 2017)
Publication Date: October 5, 2017
Genre: War | Military
Print Length: 384 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com
Follow the harrowing and heartbreaking story of one man’s journey to Hell and discover how he never really came back, no matter how many years and miles separate him from the death and the terror of being a soldier in Vietnam. We are taken to those battlefields, told of the blood, the sweat and the heart-wrenching losses followed by the guilt of feeling responsible for some of those darkest moments when a “brother” is lost. We will feel the self-imposed guilt of being a survivor, the fall into the mind numbing bliss of alcohol and the loss of the innocence Herald can never get back.
Share the gallows humor of men whose lives could be gone in an instant, watch as their inner selves implode, leaving only the soldier who would die for those around them one minute and quake in fear the next. What makes a man a hero? After reading CURSE OF THE COLORING BOOK by Howard L. Hibard clearly a man is a hero if through all of the horrors he must witness and even inflict, he can still find just a little more to give for those around him.
This fictionalized true story is gut-wrenching and NO ONE who has not lived it can truly understand what this author is talking about. Those of us who know or love someone who came home from Vietnam or any war have stood by helplessly as we have watched the aftermath. No matter your personal beliefs, read this, meet these soldiers, mere boys who are sent to do what the politicians won’t. Anyone can declare war, or as in the case of Vietnam, “not war” but only a real hero can crawl through the death and hope to survive and no hero should have to deal with the emotional aftermath. And PTSD is real.
If you read anything out of your comfort zone this year, I highly recommend CURSE OF THE COLORING BOOK as well as E. Michael Helms’ THE PRIVATE WAR OF CORPORAL HENSON
I am voluntarily reviewing this copy sent from Howard L. Hibbard.
Publisher: Ghost Dog Enterprises, Inc. (October 5, 2017)
Publication Date: October 5, 2017
Genre: War | Military
Print Length: 384 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com
November 29, 2017
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Herald Lloyd is an attorney whose life is falling apart -- he's drinking to excess regularly, his wife/business partner is continually threatening to leave, and he's committed a pretty obvious bit of malpractice while being uninsured -- which will pretty much ruin his practice and family. All of this can be traced back to his drinking, he's self-medicating to deal with recurring nightmares, flashbacks and stress related to his time serving in Vietnam (all of which are probably exacerbated by the drinking in a wonderful loop). We know that because he tells everyone that he's dealing with his symptoms just fine on his own in just about every conversation he has. Because what says "dealing with" better than constantly talking about how you're dealing with it?
The novel focuses on the actions that take place in 1988, where Lloyd deals with crisis around his malpractice and his efforts to dodge the repercussions of it. The characterization of everyone is shallow, the writing is stiff, the dialogue is cringe-worthy, the plot is predictable (yeah, it's based to some degree on actual events, but the presentation of the plot is predictable).
The book's saving grace (and, at times, the only thing that kept me reading) were the flashbacks to Lloyd's time in Vietnam. They (by my entirely unscientific reckoning) make up about sixty percentage of the book They were still too-frequently sloppy and self-indulgent with cringe-worthy dialogue. However, there was a life to them, something you could build a novel on (thankfully, because that's just what Hibbard was trying to do). Seriously, give me a novel based on this material alone, and my take will be much more encouraging. There's a great mix of types of material -- comic, dark comic, horror, slice of life, friendship, loyalty -- just about everything you could ask for when Lloyd thinks about (willingly or not) his friends, subordinates, commanders, antagonists from his years in Asia.
There's quite a lot of material featuring flashbacks to a week of R&R Lloyd spent with a prostitute. His wife, Thea, didn't enjoy him reliving that so often -- and who can blame her? -- and I didn't either. Calling them "gratuitous" feels like a tautology, honestly. I'm going to stop there because this threatens to take over this post, and no one wants that.
I'm going to give this a 3 Star rating because the Vietnam material was so strong (minus the stuff with the prostitute), the 1988 material on its own wouldn't even get 2 from me. A good editorial pass or two would've helped things tremendously -- I appreciate what it seems that Hibbard was going for here, but good intentions don't make good books. Good writing does, and there just wasn't much of that here.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
---
Herald Lloyd is an attorney whose life is falling apart -- he's drinking to excess regularly, his wife/business partner is continually threatening to leave, and he's committed a pretty obvious bit of malpractice while being uninsured -- which will pretty much ruin his practice and family. All of this can be traced back to his drinking, he's self-medicating to deal with recurring nightmares, flashbacks and stress related to his time serving in Vietnam (all of which are probably exacerbated by the drinking in a wonderful loop). We know that because he tells everyone that he's dealing with his symptoms just fine on his own in just about every conversation he has. Because what says "dealing with" better than constantly talking about how you're dealing with it?
The novel focuses on the actions that take place in 1988, where Lloyd deals with crisis around his malpractice and his efforts to dodge the repercussions of it. The characterization of everyone is shallow, the writing is stiff, the dialogue is cringe-worthy, the plot is predictable (yeah, it's based to some degree on actual events, but the presentation of the plot is predictable).
The book's saving grace (and, at times, the only thing that kept me reading) were the flashbacks to Lloyd's time in Vietnam. They (by my entirely unscientific reckoning) make up about sixty percentage of the book They were still too-frequently sloppy and self-indulgent with cringe-worthy dialogue. However, there was a life to them, something you could build a novel on (thankfully, because that's just what Hibbard was trying to do). Seriously, give me a novel based on this material alone, and my take will be much more encouraging. There's a great mix of types of material -- comic, dark comic, horror, slice of life, friendship, loyalty -- just about everything you could ask for when Lloyd thinks about (willingly or not) his friends, subordinates, commanders, antagonists from his years in Asia.
There's quite a lot of material featuring flashbacks to a week of R&R Lloyd spent with a prostitute. His wife, Thea, didn't enjoy him reliving that so often -- and who can blame her? -- and I didn't either. Calling them "gratuitous" feels like a tautology, honestly. I'm going to stop there because this threatens to take over this post, and no one wants that.
I'm going to give this a 3 Star rating because the Vietnam material was so strong (minus the stuff with the prostitute), the 1988 material on its own wouldn't even get 2 from me. A good editorial pass or two would've helped things tremendously -- I appreciate what it seems that Hibbard was going for here, but good intentions don't make good books. Good writing does, and there just wasn't much of that here.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
December 10, 2017
Everyday life and war experiences fit together about as well as guns and poetry—a combination that author Howard L Hibbard makes feel almost natural in his Vietnam War novel, the Curse of the Coloring Book. The truth of real experience is neither picture-book enticement nor text-book knowledge but somewhere in between—somewhere the author has clearly been. Bringing Vietnam to life through haunting details, from sudden death to sodden airmail paper; adding a vivid depiction of the world of a small-town attorney; stirring in family and friends who would help if only they could, and others who wouldn’t; it’s a heady mix and a story that’s hard to put down. The man, who once risked life and limb by failing to examine a coloring book’s promise, now risks family and career after failing to examine a legal document. And the man who held lives in his hands now has flashbacks when he should be striding forward.
The story’s told mostly through the eyes of Herald Lloyd, an attorney “cursed” with a catastrophic mistake and a huge dependence on alcohol. But perhaps he’s cursed by a much smaller error of judgement—a mystery the reader waits to see resolved. And perhaps the coloring book he blamed for his troubles is waiting to cause more pain. He’s a man who doesn’t know what he needs, just as he was once a youth who imagined war would provide a solution to his problems.
War is viewed mostly through Herald’s eyes and sometimes through the gaze of others—a wise soldier needing to see his neighbor’s thoughts perhaps. Sometimes, hauntingly, it’s even viewed through Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind poetry. Characters are achingly real. Location is fraught with danger. And true knowledge is far more than books and promotion.
As the story progresses, it becomes hard to guess how it will end. Pages rush by between ever more urgent distractions, and perhaps those final scenes are anticlimactic… and perhaps that’s perfect in a novel of Vietnam’s conflict. There’s a sequel I believe, but this book stands alone and unique—a solid convincing voice, a haunting tale of past and present colliding, and a place where all the options finally point to a single-color, single-way forward, one step at a time.
Disclosure: I was given a copy and I offer my honest review.
The story’s told mostly through the eyes of Herald Lloyd, an attorney “cursed” with a catastrophic mistake and a huge dependence on alcohol. But perhaps he’s cursed by a much smaller error of judgement—a mystery the reader waits to see resolved. And perhaps the coloring book he blamed for his troubles is waiting to cause more pain. He’s a man who doesn’t know what he needs, just as he was once a youth who imagined war would provide a solution to his problems.
War is viewed mostly through Herald’s eyes and sometimes through the gaze of others—a wise soldier needing to see his neighbor’s thoughts perhaps. Sometimes, hauntingly, it’s even viewed through Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind poetry. Characters are achingly real. Location is fraught with danger. And true knowledge is far more than books and promotion.
As the story progresses, it becomes hard to guess how it will end. Pages rush by between ever more urgent distractions, and perhaps those final scenes are anticlimactic… and perhaps that’s perfect in a novel of Vietnam’s conflict. There’s a sequel I believe, but this book stands alone and unique—a solid convincing voice, a haunting tale of past and present colliding, and a place where all the options finally point to a single-color, single-way forward, one step at a time.
Disclosure: I was given a copy and I offer my honest review.
December 8, 2017
Curse of the Coloring Book by Howard L. Hibbard
This was a hard book to read. The plot is inspired by the true story of an attorney dealing with PTSD due to his Vietnam experiences.
The idiocy of the college fraternity experience, the stress of the draft and protests and the inability to “measure up” to unrealistic expectations fuel aspects of this plot.
Herald Lloyd is an attorney struggling with internal demons. His experiences as a infantry platoon Lt. in Vietnam feed the fires of alcohol abuse and self loathing. Many Vets from Vietnam believed that to be a man you had to bottle up your anger and frustration and soldier on. The futility of this approach is graphically illustrated in the book.
The incongruities of the Vietnam war are clearly shown. Herald flashes back to stress points when he encounters stress points in his current life. His wife’s insistence that he seek help are rebuffed by his assurances that he can handle it.
The book showed the despicable way returning Vets were treated in that era. It seems that today’s Vets are treated better, one can only hope that is true.
What we ask of our young men and women is almost beyond comprehension, the least we can do is treat them with respect, help and honor when they come home.
Good book.
This was a hard book to read. The plot is inspired by the true story of an attorney dealing with PTSD due to his Vietnam experiences.
The idiocy of the college fraternity experience, the stress of the draft and protests and the inability to “measure up” to unrealistic expectations fuel aspects of this plot.
Herald Lloyd is an attorney struggling with internal demons. His experiences as a infantry platoon Lt. in Vietnam feed the fires of alcohol abuse and self loathing. Many Vets from Vietnam believed that to be a man you had to bottle up your anger and frustration and soldier on. The futility of this approach is graphically illustrated in the book.
The incongruities of the Vietnam war are clearly shown. Herald flashes back to stress points when he encounters stress points in his current life. His wife’s insistence that he seek help are rebuffed by his assurances that he can handle it.
The book showed the despicable way returning Vets were treated in that era. It seems that today’s Vets are treated better, one can only hope that is true.
What we ask of our young men and women is almost beyond comprehension, the least we can do is treat them with respect, help and honor when they come home.
Good book.
January 19, 2018
Author Howard L. Hibbard in his novel, “Curse of the Coloring Book” writes about a young man Herald Lloyd’s life. The reader is quickly engaged within Herald’s military experiences giving vivid detail to a tour in Vietnam. While in Vietnam there are many disturbing things that occur making it very difficult to maintain a reasonable order of life after returning to the states.
While serving law, Harold make a huge mistake that could destroy his business, his family and the business of the one he represented. While going through this excreting, circumstance and relying upon a bottle to cover and mask his pain his mind constantly goes back to the events that occurred while in Vietnam. While the end result is very rewarding the reader is taken along the journey of an extremely difficult life that seems to swallow Harold up in the process.
While serving law, Harold make a huge mistake that could destroy his business, his family and the business of the one he represented. While going through this excreting, circumstance and relying upon a bottle to cover and mask his pain his mind constantly goes back to the events that occurred while in Vietnam. While the end result is very rewarding the reader is taken along the journey of an extremely difficult life that seems to swallow Harold up in the process.
May 30, 2018
First off lemme start by saying this is much more then a story about the Vietnam War but a story of a young man who decided he wanted to serve his country and the emotional aftermath it caused him. The book gives great insight to the author's thoughts during his time at war and how they are shaped by his experiences.It also is interesting how the book jumps back and fourth from Hibbard as a lawyer to him as a young man and how his current lawsuit he is working on brings up a lot of the PTSD he has from the war. This is a great read and one that I could not put down, I constantly wanted to know what was going to happen next in Hibbard's crazy ride through Vietnam. This book also touches on a much deeper issue with PTSD and veterans, something that needs to more deeply addressed in America.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews