Hypertext Magazine asked Terry Tierney, author of Lucky Ride, “Why did you structure Flash’s Vietnam Era hitchhiking trip from Upstate New York to California with several detours to visit his Seabee friends?”
By Terry Tierney
I began by writing a humorous novel about Flash’s crazy adventures on the road, but as I dove deeper into his character, I realized his choice of destinations and his meandering path reveals his inner journey. His map of America is marked with friends from his military service on Adak in the remote Aleutian Islands when his primary goal was enduring the year of separation from his wife Ronnie and returning to his life back home. Those dreams evaporated. Connecting with his Seabee friends will allow him a chance to gain their support and their perspectives on his unraveling marriage and his shattered plans.
Similarly, I wanted the characters of Flash’s friends to project their own dilemmas as they transition out of the military. Like anyone returning home from a mind-bending experience, they confront a cultural jet lag when rebuilding their lives. The social and political upheaval of the 60’s occurred while they were stuck in the stasis of the military, and they emerge several years behind their contemporaries who spent their young adulthoods starting families and forging careers. Military dependents, including Ronnie and the other wives and girlfriends in the novel, feel the impact as much or more than the veterans they love.
The perception of change and displacement in the post-war world after Vietnam also reflects its unique era, complicating the reentry plans of Flash and the other characters. As society recovers from the unpopular war, there are few welcome home signs, though his friends all faced the daily threat of knowing their next orders might send them to Vietnam, and many of them survived tours there. On Adak, they echoed the social revolution stateside, responding to the existential uncertainty by questioning authority and altering reality through weed and LSD. As they try to kickstart their former lives, Flash and his friends feel alienated from society at large and often denigrated by the counterculture they admire.
I handed Flash a roadmap to resolve his tangled challenges. His trip is one of escape and self-discovery driven by his desire to comprehend his romance with Ronnie, while reconciling his past, his hatred of the war, and his plans now that he’s finally free of the Navy. Along with positioning Flash to address his problems, which are often the source of humor themselves, I left him plenty of opportunities for adventure and miscues along the way. Change is chaotic and the result seldom matches what we expect.
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Terry Tierney is the author of a poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and two novels, Lucky Ride, which was published in December 2021, and The Bridge on Beer River, scheduled for 2023, both by Unsolicited Press. His stories and poems have recently appeared in Ghost Parachute, Flash Fiction Magazine, Rust and Moth, Typishly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Lake and other publications. After earning a PhD in nineteenth-century literature and teaching college composition and creative writing, he survived several Silicon Valley startups as a software engineering manager. Visit his website at https://terrytierney.com.
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