The Heart That Fed
A Father, a Son, and the Long Shadow of War
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant graphic memoir debut, this is a loving son’s exploration of his tumultuous relationship with his father, told through the lens of the Vietnam War and its lasting effects long after returning home.
As a college dropout amidst the tumult of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, David Sciacchitano enlisted in the Air Force and volunteered to be sent overseas. An aircraft mechanic away from the front lines, David nevertheless experienced the chaos of war during the Tet Offensive and the 1975 evacuation. But although David returned home from the war with no physical injuries, it would be as if a part of him was forever left behind.
Set against one of the most tumultuous events of the 20th century, The Heart That Fed is a beautifully illustrated and moving story of trauma and love—told by a son seeking to understand a father forever changed by PTSD and the horrors of war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this potent graphic novel, cartoonist Sciacchitano (The Army of Dr. Moreau) unpacks his father's war stories. After signing up for the Air Force in 1965, college dropout David Sciacchitano was sent to Vietnam, where he witnessed enough horrors—Viet Cong prisoners left to die in the sun, U.S. advisers tortured and executed—to cause nightmares that he half-jokes are so constant "you almost miss them when they don't show up." Sciacchitano takes an open, curious approach to digging into the origins of his father's rage, which his dad insists is not PTSD ("Enough of this Oliver Stone shit," David snaps at Carl's mother). Unlike many children of Vietnam veterans, Sciacchitano heard plenty ("It's hard to remember a weekend with my dad that didn't revolve around bowls of pho and war stories," he writes), but the narrative is still structured as an investigation, with Sciacchitano interviewing David, conducting research, and reconstructing his father's memories. Subtly sketched, with pops of emotive rawness in dialogue and evocative drawings, the book elegantly braids David's professional arc (military, Foreign Service, war victims' NGO work) with his psychological journey. The result is a complex and empathetic portrait of war and its consequences.
