In his prize-winning memoir, Reconciliation Road, John Marshall recounts a road trip around America in search of the truth about his famous grandfather General S. L. A. (Slam) Marshall, author of Pork Chop Hill. In the process he comes to terms with his own past and that of others whose families were torn apart by the Vietnam War.

Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey

Biographies & Memoirs

Marshall, John Douglas

Arts & Literature

University of Washington

Seattle Public Library's dazzling new Central Library, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, prompted international notice even before the doors opened to this $159 million showplace. Yet Seattle Public Library's new prominence came after more than a century of tumult with many heroic struggles, from its itinerant existence in a pioneer boom town to its wired wonders in a world technology center.
In Place of Learning, Place of Dreams John Douglas Marshall recounts the fascinating stories behind the books and buildings of Seattle Public Library. The suspicious fire that destroyed the library's home in the historic Yesler mansion and led to a surprise rescue by Andrew Carnegie in the early 1900s. The library's efforts through world wars, earthquakes, epidemic, and Depression. The Red Scares that claimed the jobs of two loyal library employees. The library's stocking of a graphic sex education book that sparked a controversy reaching all the way to the U.S. Senate. The city book club born at Seattle Public Library and copied across the country. The landmark "Libraries for All" program to remake the entire Seattle Public Library system with a $196 million bond issue, the largest in American library history.
Marshall also profiles many intriguing people who enlivened Seattle Public Library and its contributions to the city. Librarian Charles Wesley Smith withstood a charge that he set the Yesler mansion fire. Sculptor George Tsutakawa's first fountain, for Seattle's Central Library, led to scores of renowned fountains around the globe. Yesler branch librarian James Welch rescued a dying library in a black neighborhood with the help of activist Millie Russell. And maverick architect Rem Koolhaas won his important Seattle commission after a startling turnabout by library board members during a visit to Europe.
Place of Learning, Place of Dreams tells the human story of a beloved Seattle institution with drama, honesty, and flair.
John Douglas Marshall was book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His previous publications include Reconciliation Road, an award-winning family memoir, and Volcano: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens, a national best-seller.

Place of Learning, Place of Dreams: A History of the Seattle Public Library (McLellan Book)

History

Americas

University of Washington Press

A famous grandfather, one of America's foremost military historians, a brigadier general. His grandson, a new Army Infantry lieutenant. Vietnam. A stand against war. A family ripped apart. This is Reconciliation Road, the story of one man's lifelong commitment to the fight, another man's refusal to fight, and the price they both paid. S. L. A. Marshall's place in history seemed secure. The author of thirty books about war (including Pork Chop Hill and Men Against Fire), a television commentator and syndicated columnist, "Slam" Marshall was said to have seen more combat in the twentieth century than any other American from his own days as a World War I doughboy in France to his several visits to the killing fields of Vietnam. Then, a decade after Marshall's death, a national controversy called his reputation into question. A major article in American Heritage magazine charged him with fraudulent research and falsifying his past, allegations also featured on the front page of the New York Times. Members of the Marshall family were outraged and urged John, S. L. A.'s grandson, to investigate the story. But John Douglas Marshall hesitated, remembering how his grandfather had disowned him after his honorable discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. Their once-close relationship had become yet another casualty of the war. Reconciliation Road is the story of John Douglas Marshall's odyssey across America in search of the truth about his grandfather and the roots of their bitter split. It resonates with intriguing encounters of people (General William C. Westmoreland, CBS's Mike Wallace, Vietnam writer Larry Heinemann) and places (Fort Benning, the University of Virginia, theMarshall archives in El Paso, Texas, the grave of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlanta, the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.). Reconciliation Road is one of the few published accounts of a Vietnam conscientious objector, and much more. Part family memoir,

Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey of War and Honor

Historical

Syracuse University Press

Reconciliation Road

Leaders & Notable People

Ruminator Books

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