BOBBY JACK: THE LAFOLLETTE CHRONICLES

by D. Guy

Growing up, Bobby Jack Stagnari was a great looking kid with jet-black hair, a twinkle in his eye, and the gift of gab. Everybody loved Bobby Jack! Everybody, that is, except Nettie Ruth Goins, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy local businessman. Nettie Ruth had hated Bobby Jack since first grade, and he had no idea why. As far as he knew, he’d never done a thing to her. Or, perhaps she was just crazy. Maybe that was the problem! When things began to heat up in Vietnam, Bobby Jack enlisted in the Navy. After all, everyone knows that the Navy doesn't go to war. The plan was to avoid anything resembling actual combat. However, that plan did not work out so well. Somehow Bobby Jack managed to get himself badly wounded in action and is sent home with a Bronze Star with a “V” for valor in combat and a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster for multiple wounds. Now a genuine war hero, Bobby Jack finds himself working for Nettie Ruth Goins' father, putting his military connections to profitable use. Life is good. Surprisingly, Nettie Ruth Goins becomes Nettie Ruth Stagnari, and the happy new couple soon have a baby on the way. Twelve years into their marriage, tragedy strikes when their son, Benjy, is hit by a car. At the emergency room, Bobby Jack learns a dark secret that changes his life forever. Deciding to disappear, he takes his daughter, Gracie, to Pozzuoli, Italy, where he first finds his family roots and then plots a terrible vengeance. Bobby Jack has two problems to deal with. One problem is named Nettie Ruth. The other problem is named Rosalba. An Italian grandfather and an Italian-American father had taught him that the blood in his veins runs hotter than that of his fellow citizens in East Tennessee. Anyone who betrays him will find that out. Anyone else who is part of that betrayal will find themselves destroyed! Will Bobby Jack allow hatred and revenge to destroy the remainder of his life? Or, can he turn his tragic situation around. There is only one way to find out!

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 23, 2018

About the author

D GUY (Douglas Joe Guy,) has an extremely interesting background. Joe is from the small town of LaFollette, nestled in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee. Joe is a military veteran with over twenty years in the U.S. Navy. Thirteen of these years in the Navy were spent at sea. Joe likes to say there are two types of stories in the Navy. One type is called a “sea story,” and these stories may even have a touch of truth to them. The other type of story always start out with the phrase, “Now this is no s**t ….” Naturally, true stories such as these became known as “no s****ers.”
Joe read hundreds and perhaps thousands of book while at sea, and from every genre imaginable. Combine that with the wealth of “sea stories” and “no s****ers” from his days in the Navy, and he has a lot of material to work with. Many of these tales were funny, some were tragic, others were love stories, and finally, some were simply preposterous. After retiring the second time, first from the Navy and then from his Financial Services Agency, Joe needed a way to get out from under his wife’s feet. Therefore, he decided to write a book.
“One of the things I learned early on, from information available on writer’s sites on the web and and from YouTube videos, is that a person should write about what they know. I felt that I knew 3 things: First, I know East Tennessee in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. The second thing I knew was the military. I served for 21 years, 3 months and 6 days (not like I’d been counting) in the United States Navy, retiring as a Chief Radioman. That time included serving sea tours on three ships and 21 months with III Corps in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Finally, the third thing I know is Southern Italy in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. One or more of these three topics are found in all of my stories.
I am from a small town in East Tennessee, called LaFollette. It’s located approximately forty miles north of Knoxville and figures in all of my stories.
I have three cats (all with Italian names). I have three (sometimes) adult children, and I Have five granddaughters (all of which are smart and beautiful).”
My current projects:
“Currently, I am publishing a series on Amazon called “The LaFollette Chronicles.” I have published five of them so far. They are stories that take place in LaFollette and/or Southern Italy The time frames are usually the first sixty or so years of the last century.

I write about life in those years and people in situations they had not planned on. These situation may involve dealing with a cheating spouse or crawling over the dead bodies of friends while storming the beaches during the Salerno invasion in September of 1943. Maybe the story is about falling in love the very first time you see a person, or perhaps fighting for your very life in 50-below-zero weather of Korea at the “Frozen Chosin” Reservoir in Korea during November of 1950.”
Finding Topics/Storylines:
“They just pop up. For instance, I recently watched a forensics show on television and they were discussing blood types and combination. I found out that type O plus type O could NOT produce a type A child. That produced an 83,000 word romance/tragedy/vengeance story. Another story awaiting publication (much too long at 152k words) came to me during a 30-minute nap. I woke up with the story line and protagonists. After that, it was just a matter of filling in the blanks.
One more idea about where ideas come from. Recently, I was kicked back, reading a book about songwriting by Jimmy Webb, whom along with Bobby Braddock, I consider one of the greatest songwriters ever. I took a break from reading and went to YouTube, and surfed for a while. I finally stopped on an old biography about John Singer Sargent, a painter so famous that even I had heard of him.
Sargent went the island of Capri, Italy in 1878, to paint several portraits of Rosina Ferrara, who was the equivalent of a modern supermodel. Famous artists from everywhere went to Capri