613 West Jefferson

I found 613 to be a fascinating novel. It allows you to share the life of people that are out of the mainstream life of most Americans, and people that we only read about in the newspapers when they run into trouble with the police. Danny Lliteras brings them to life and we understand why they are living there and something about their mentality. He also blends in his experience in Vietnam to produce a great, very readable novel about the two worlds; Vietnam and the drug sub culture in America. A wonderful book.

D.S. Lliteras is one of those hidden literary gems that needs a much bigger audience than he now has. Here is a man of extraordinary sensitivity and compassion, a Marine Corps medic in Vietnam who saw hells many did not survive physically, and even more did not survive emotionally. In 613 WEST JEFFERSON, through the story of his alter ego Richard Santo, Lliteras shows us what an enormous task it was for Vietnam veterans to come home from that terribly wrong and terribly destructive war. He also makes clear what so much writing on Vietnam has omitted--that the key to healing from the war requires a partnership between those who fought and the rest of American society, the non-Vietnam veterans, who need to understand how their own wounds and painful memories mesh and resonate with those of these scorned and forgotten warriors. The story of how Santo finally finds a real homecoming in a halfway house of broken losers, drifters and drug addicts, will touch your heart. And its lesson is powerful and shocking--one this nation needs to listen to: that American society should be ashamed that the best it had to offer men traumatized in the Vietnam War was not even close to the actual warmth one veteran found sleeping on the couch in a condemned house in a poor neighborhood in Tallahassee, just because there he found love and acceptance, and no one else in this great country seemed prepared or able to give him those things. Moreover, Lliteras's language in telling his story has the fire and irresistible rhythm of his own triumphant survivor's heart.

This is a solemn, poetic, and finally haunting novel. It's the story of Rick Santo, a Vietnam combat veteran, returning to the states in the early-mid 70s. He winds up in Tallahassee, Florida, and hooks up with a half dozen or so residents of a run-down rooming house (613 Jefferson). These folks, all damaged goods, seek, in their own ways, meaning for their lives, and this book chronicles that search. There are scenes of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the present, alternating with flashbacks of Rick's time in Vietnam. In a sense, not much happens, but that's not intended as criticism. Lliteras does a good job of creating meaning out of meaninglessness. He's also a fine writer of straight-ahead prose. The writing contains none of the self-consciousness and indirectness that (in my opinion) plagues modern writers. And the work is filled with turns of phrase that invoke unique images, and are a pleasure to read. This novel is of the sort where a second reading is rewarding. At first glance, its sparseness might leave a reader feeling that something is missing. But a second reading fills in the gaps. At least that was my reaction. If you're interested in the time period at all, in the world the returning Vietnam vet entered, then order 613 Jefferson today. All and all, a minor-masterpiece.