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MWSA Review
Life Dust is an enthralling account of a young, engaged couple in 1971. Andy, an Army lieutenant, gets deployed to Vietnam for a year. Nettie is a nursing intern at an ER in Virginia. Seemingly completely different situations, Pam Webber does a superb job at artfully keeping their lives parallel. It is a refreshing Vietnam story.
Conducting reconnaissance, Andy and his men tread lightly in the jungle, to survive the enemy and the jungle itself. “[D]on’t fight the jungle. . . . It provides food, water, and cover against the enemy and the elements. Its noise, as well as its silence, warns you if someone or something is approaching. It even has medicines for some of our most common ailments. However, if you ignore or disrespect it, the jungle will kill you.” Despite also fighting human limitations, fatigue, and military bureaucracy, Andy and his men morph into a cohesive squad. After a daring reconnaissance mission, when they’re catching their breaths back at camp, they’re assigned to a secret operation. The mission’s intricate plan is dangerous but Andy’s men would follow him anywhere. Fait accompli (albeit, with repercussions), Andy goes home.
Meanwhile, Nettie finds a friend in an elderly, cranky patient with a bad heart. “He’s been angry since he woke up and realized he wasn’t dead.” She inspires him and he credits her with buying him more time. Their friendship and her dedication to him flourishes, despite the constant obstacles Nettie’s superior throws at her. Like Andy, Nettie stands up for herself and others in the face of intimidation, is a loyal friend, and feels the heartache of losing a friend.
Webber weaves flowers into both characters’ lives. In his youth, lotus blossoms were the saving grace of Nettie’s dying friend, and he introduces her to the healing powers of gardens. In Vietnam, in addition to offering a spiritual lift, the eloquent lotus blossoms and the ritual of steeping tea in the flower overnight play a logistical role in resistance operations, and in Andy’s secret mission.
We’re transported to Andy’s and Nettie’s simultaneous adventures, worlds apart. I highly recommend you stop and smell the lotus blossoms, and read Life Dust.
Review by Sue Rushford (March 2023)
Author's Synopsis
Nettie and Andy have been soul mates since childhood. While planning their wedding, Andy must deploy to South Vietnam for a year. To deal with the loss, Nettie dives into her work as a nursing intern in a busy Northern Virginia emergency room. When she inadvertently walks in on a nursing supervisor and surgeon during a late-night tryst, the couple begins a campaign to discredit her and sabotage her internship. Nettie's only respite is a reclusive old man with an extraordinary secret.
Meanwhile, Andy is leading a jungle reconnaissance squad when he receives orders to escort a high-ranking female freedom fighter, Bien, to a clandestine meeting with an enemy officer who wants to defect. Bien hopes the officer is the younger brother the North Vietnamese conscripted into their army as a child. However, Andy thinks his unit is walking into a trap that could cost them everything.
Struggling to survive in different worlds, Nettie and Andy navigate the best and worst of human nature as they try to find their way back to each other. Along the way they learn what real love, respect, and caring are about-- what duty, honor, and country really mean.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 312
Word Count: 83,504