Book Talk: George Cadwalader

Woods Hole Public Library, 581 Woods Hole Rd, Woods Hole, MA | Get Directions »
FREE

George Cadwalader will talk about his new book “Unmarked Road”, a fictional account of a serviceman’s experience in Vietnam and subsequent difficult recovery  in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital.  Cadwalader himself  served ten years in the Marine Corps and was wounded in Vietnam, and draws on his own experience to color this account. 

As retired Marine General Walter Boomer has said  “The Unmarked Road” cuts through to the soul, at least to the soul of those who have been in combat – real combat. The moral dilemma faced by Gunnery Sergeant Caleb is the same dilemma faced in varying degrees by those who have had to kill in war regardless of the “righteousness” of their cause.  Cadwalader's novel deals with this age-old problem of moral responsibility in war with brilliance and insight. It unfolds in the fictionalized though accurate account of combat on the ground by infantrymen in Vietnam and brings home once again the violent, brutish, reality of war. As the terribly wounded Caleb wrestles with his demons in the naval hospital you will wrestle with him.”

After Cadwalader was medically retired as a Major, he went on to found the Penikese Island School, a wilderness based program for delinquent teenagers, which he directed for twenty three years and wrote about in Castaways: The Penikese Island Experiment. He lives in Woods Hole with his wife, Yara, and worked until 2012 as a commercial lobsterman. He now divides his time, as he says “ between trying to write coherent prose and rebuilding derelict boats that wiser men would instead consign to the dump”.

The talk will be on Monday, March 25, 7:30 PM, at the Woods Hole Public Library, and is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase. For more information call the Library at 508-548-8961 or visit www.woodsholepubliclibrary.org.