When I grew up, World War II was omnipresent and hidden. This was also true of myfather’s time in the Air Force. Like most of his generation, it was a rule with him not totalk about what he’d seen at war. “You’re not getting any war stories from me,” he’d say. Cleaning up the old family house the year before he died, I was surprised to find a shortdiary of the bombing missions he had flown. Some of the missions were harrowing. Ibegan to fill in the details, and to be surprised again, this time by a history I thought Iknew. I Will Tell No War Stories is about undoing the forgetting in our family and in a societythat has hidden the horrors and cataclysm of a world at war. Some part of that forgettingwas necessary for the veterans, otherwise how could they come home, how could theyfind peace?I Will Tell No War Stories is, finally, about learning to live with history, a theme I haveexplored in some of my earlier books like In the Memory House and The Same Ax,Twice. The New York Times called In the Memory House a “wise and beautiful book.” Inanother review, the Times said, “The Same Ax, Twice is filled with insight andeloquence… a memorable, readable, brilliant book on an important subject. It is a bookfilled with quotable wisdom.”
