American Time Bomb (i)
From son Joshua Melville and Chicago Review Press
Sam Melville among the bombers looks to me like poet Gary Snyder among the beats. He was the 1 who studied and thought and had something to say that was not banal or crazy.
I contrast his letters from Attica to his comrades with Eldridge Cleaver’s correspondence from Folsom with his attorney. Both books look alike and littered together many different households back in the day.
Eldridge is the 1 reflecting on his previous actions of rape for social change. Sam is the 1 reporting on black and white together for revolution, after bombing the establishment half a dozen times without killing anyone.
Guess which of the 2 dissidents the Rockefeller had shot so he could run for president. A literature has grown around Sam, sustained by readers rather than course assignments.
In this book the abandoned son relates how he tried to explain dad to his own son in our new century. The subtitle - a son’s search for answers - is like the press at the book’s publication, not my interest.
Sam Melville made revolution and died in battle. The son may want answers in family drama but the common good needs his father’s thought. I will find something in there.
Sam arrived here in 1934 just 3 years after my father. I would call him chú, junior uncle. Joshua Melville seems to be 2 years younger than me. I haven’t nailed that down yet but I would certainly call him em, younger brother. Attorney Ron Kuby, endorsing the book on its front flap, is just my older brother’s age, so I would call him anh.
The historian Heather Ann Thompson, not quite half a year younger than my next brother, endorses the book on the back cover, as does novelist Susan Jane Gilman, born 1964, when Sam was 30, as my father was when I arrived in 1960.
Broadway producer David Rothenberg who is also on that cover would have called Sam anh. Then there are a couple of blurbs from boomers too, famous babies of 1945-55 whom I dislike for their self-absorption and spokepersonhood. But Joshua’s book looks to be a work of my cohort and our moms and dads.
This was the first Viet Nam letter of 2 on American Time Bomb by Joshua Melville. The second posted on January 26, 2023.
Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.
The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.