Did it.

eruthford said:

Hi Brutus,
This book sounds quite interesting to me, the sort of thing I'd read. Do you have a summary or a query letter I can look at for more information?


Eric,
Here's the bulk of one of my mold query letters. The book will be called "Saigon Kids: A military Brat Comes of Age, 1963-64" but at this point I had a different title.
In May of 1962, my father, Naval Chief Petty Officer Bryant Arbuckle, flew to Vietnam to establish a new Armed Forces Radio Station in downtown Saigon. He promised to send for my mother, two brothers and me when he found us a place to live. Much to my dismay, we followed him over six months later.
In 1963, Saigon was beautiful, dirty and violent -- the most exciting place a fourteen-year-old American boy could live. Running from machine gun fire, watching in horror as a Buddhist monk burned to death, visiting brothels late at night, trading currency on the black market -- there was always something weird to do in Saigon and my friends and I explored with reckless abandon, much to the consternation of our parents and teachers.
When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was certain I would never have any friends again. But like everything else in Saigon, the American social scene was more than I bargained for. Our school was a blend of kids from all over the globe, hanging together as strangers in a strange land so often do. We came of age during the Kennedy era, a time of optimism and hope, when anything was possible. But in Saigon, every ray of hope was followed only by chaos, turmoil, death and destruction.
In spite of the ugliness that was a feature of everyday life, I loved living in Saigon.
The events leading up to Vietnam War provide an unusual backdrop for this coming of age tale with a twist. A Cinder in a Bonfire would also make a perfect companion to the documentary film (sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts) currently in production. The film chronicles the lives of military brats living in Saigon between 1958 and 1964, a volatile period in history. My brothers and I will appear in the film. Like me, they were involuntary witnesses with a perspective on Vietnamese history that has received little attention in the literary world.

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