Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

My third novel (the first two were throw aways) was called I Guess You're Still A Virgin. It was published years later as Driving With Ace . After I finished it, I wrote to Kurt Vonnegut to see if he would read it because someone told me it reminded them of his writing. I liked his writing and thought I would attempt to write to him through his publisher. I received the above response on onion skin paper on his old typewriter. It shows some of what he thought about New York publishing. I was surprised I even heard from him. Now that he is gone, the letter has more meaning to me.

(What I imagined the operation would look like after I was out and having a nightmare.) I had an operation at the Cincinnati VA to remove something called a papilloma from my right nostril. It’s basically a wart. I had two of them, one on the outside of the skin inside the nose and one called an inverted papilloma , with roots that dig under the skin inside the nose. It sounds gross as hell and I’m glad I didn’t have to see the things. They are supposed to be common, but I’ve never heard anyone say they ever had one. The inverted kind can turn into cancer, (10% chance) and no one seems to know what causes them. (Before photo at left) I’ve never been operated on except for my tonsils as a kid and ten years ago when I had another papilloma removed by a civilian doctor. The VA doctors also decided to fix my screwed up septum, since my nose has been broken several times. I went weeks ago in February for the operation and was put to sleep, but when I woke up, I found out that they didn’t d...

The picture is me at age 20 as a Marine on the deck of the helicopter carrier USS Okinawa off the coast of Vietnam sometime in October 1967. I don't remember being so young or what was in my mind at the time. I didn't plan for a future because I expected to die before age 21. The night before I left home I got a drag racing ticket about two in the morning. The cop told me I would have to be in court in July. I told him I would be in Vietnam. "We'll be waiting at your door when you get back," he said. "If I make it back, I'll be glad to see you." I had a real world fatalistic attitude. I tore the ticket up before he drove away and never heard anymore about it. Maybe the judge figured I was in enough trouble. This morning I saw an article about a 25 year old veteran who killed himself after the VA turned him away when he sought help for PTSD. I usually never tell anyone except other veterans that I'm 100% service-connected for PTSD. I have been fo...