A book discussion series for veterans led by Vietnam veteran & author Wayne Karlin. For more information contact Kimberlé Fields at 301-863-8188 or kfields@stmalib.org.
A reading and book discussion series for military veterans that is led by Vietnam veteran, author, and College of Southern Maryland professor Wayne Karlin. Service members of all eras, their spouses, and adult children are welcome.
Participants should plan to attend all sessions. Books and other materials provided.
The Veterans' Book Group is coordinated statewide by Maryland Humanities and presented locally in partnership with St. Mary's County Library. The program was created by the Maine Humanities Council to promote understanding of the military experience and to support returning veterans.
June: A Wolf by the Ears by Wayne Karlin
Publisher Marketing:
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. --Thomas Jefferson
During the War of 1812, thousands of enslaved people from plantations across the Tidewater rallied to the British side, turning against an American republic that had barred them from the promises of freedom and democracy. Set against the backdrop of rebellion and war, Wayne Karlin's A Wolf by the Ears follows the interconnected stories of Towerhill and Sarai, two African slaves, and their master, Jacob Hallam. Educated side-by-side and inseparable as children, the three come of age as they are forced to grapple with--and break free of--the fraught linkage of black and white Americans and how differently each defines what it means to fight for freedom. Sarai and Jacob are caught in the tension between the dream of equality, the reality of slavery, and their own hearts, while Towerhill sits at the head of a company of black marines that is part of the force that takes Washington and watches the White House burn.