Purple Heart

Q: What inspired you to tell Matt Duffy's story in Purple Heart?

A: Several years ago I volunteered to help with a traveling exhibition designed to show the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The exhibit, which was set up in parks and public places all over the country, consisted of rows and rows of combat boots, each one with the name, age, and hometown of a soldier who'd died. Nearby, we displayed a pile of women's, men's, and children's shoes to signify the civilian casualties. As I set up the shoes for ordinary people, I came across a pair of little red sneakers and instantly I saw an image of boy being shot in the chest, his small body lifted into the air by the force of the blast.

I'd been trying to write a completely different book, but the image of the little boy haunted me until I set aside that book and wrote Purple Heart. I needed to understand how such a thing could happen. And what I came up with was a situation where none of the characters is really guilty—and none is completely blameless either.


Q: How did you research the novel?

A: I'd hoped to travel to Iraq, but my family vetoed that idea, so I read every book I could, watched every documentary I could, visited a VA hospital, and interviewed military families and soldiers. Eventually, though, I had to set the research aside and let the story flow from my imagination. When the book was finished I asked a soldier who'd just returned from Iraq to fact-check the manuscript. He paid me the highest compliment when he said, "I don't know how you did it, but you made the characters sound like me and my buddies."


Q: Did you ever consider telling Matt's story in verse? Why didn't you?

A: I never considered writing this story in verse, but I did attempt to write Purple Heart as a soldier's diary. I even wrote a version where the diary entries were interspersed with news clippings—the plain, dry language that documents war—and with excerpts from military manuals. The language in the manuals was so stiff, so impersonal, it was almost comical when compared with the emotional language—the anger, exhilaration, sadness, and boredom—in the diary entries. I finally chose to write in the third-person because I realized I was writing a kind of mystery story and that point of view gave me more latitude.


Q: What drives you to write stories about misplaced and displaced characters?

A: I guess I write about displaced people because they're always searching for something. For an answer, for some kind of home, or some measure of peace. And what is most interesting to me is that they rarely get the resolution they set out looking for. The journey takes them somewhere unexpected—but their courage is still rewarded. Sometimes, but not very often, the outcome is something better than what they imagined. Most often it's tinged with sadness or some sense of loss along with whatever they've gained. But they arrive at the end of that journey with
a hard-won wisdom that always inspires me.


Q: What was the most interesting or important thing you learned from writing Purple Heart?

A: While I opposed these wars, I came away with enormous feelings of pride—even awe—for our soldiers. They are making life-and-death decisions under enormous pressure and amidst incredible confusion over just who the enemy really is. Despite this, most of them seem to maintain an idealism about their mission and about trying to help the people of these countries who never asked for these wars. I also learned that loyalty is a tricky thing. That it is essential for soldiers living in a perpetual state of threat—and that it can blind you from seeing the truth about the people you trust and care about.


Q: What do you most hope readers will take away from the novel?

A: I don't have a political agenda for this book. My hope is that readers will see that this is a war often being fought by young people, like the ten-year-old Iraqi boy who finds himself in harm's way and the two eighteen-year-old soldiers who must cope with his death and their part in it. All of them are children under pressures no one—adult or child—should ever have to face.



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