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Perry Trouche, M.D.
6 Johnson Road
Charleston, South Carolina 29407
DrPerryT@aol.com
(843)769-1039
Synopsis of The Muleshoe

Give a nearsighted child glasses for the first time and what you’ll hear immediately is “I can see the leaves”. This sudden clarity strikes the protagonist Conner DuMont in the final chapter of The Muleshoe but it comes with a price. The dogma, promises and tradition of the past are gone. He can no longer go on doing things the way they have always been done. With this change comes awareness of his past conformity and acquiescence to a society built on evil.
The Muleshoe is Conner’s journey through his subconscious that takes him, past and present, through beliefs and memories to final acceptance of a new era built on truth. Like the peeling an onion causing tears, Conner’s gradual descent into the depths of his mind unleashes emotions that overwhelm reality.
The story is set at the battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia, in 1864 during the American Civil War, but Conner’s mental journey encompasses his childhood on the sea islands of South Carolina, the recent death of his cousin for which he blames himself, and the fantasy of life through the eyes of the common soldiers he meets.
He struggles to stay in the present, but death and the fear surrounding it propel him into a dream world of memories, real and imagined. His day to day reality is increasingly bombarded with hallucinations in which the significant people of his past and present deliver a
running commentary on his life.
As the combat worsens at the Muleshoe Salient, he is unable to differentiate reality from delusion. He creates a world of calming touch to replace the insanity of war, readily embracing the delusion of soothing affection over mind- numbing savagery. The final acts of killing sever his last tie to his prior life. He retreats physically from battle as he wanders mentally in search of acceptance and peace.
As he has learned to kill in reality, he finds he must do the same in his delusional world. The power to kill is the evil on which his world has been built. The final act of killing a childhood friend is so repugnant that it frees him from all attachment to his past. He accepts peace as he would clear, cold water to rinse an open wound. Hope for life and peace replaces the misery of war.
The Muleshoe is twenty-four chapters, half of which are in the present, June 1864, and half, flashbacks and fantasy. The historical accuracy has been well researched and the emotional journey based on my experience as a psychiatrist.

PT





Perry Trouche, M.D.
6 Johnson Road
Charleston, South Carolina 29407
DrPerryT@aol.com
(843)769-1039

Freedom itself is a delusion. The line between reality and illusion blurs to a haze. Death and destruction cause the mind to seek refuge in the dream of future peace.
Please consider my completed sixty-five thousand [65,000] words of historical fiction set in the Civil War, regarding a soldier who suffers through the physical and emotional horror of combat which destroys his prior perception of the world. The story is set in the American Civil War and tells of the soldier’s experiences at the battle of Spotsylvania: the carnage of the fighting, the daily suffering and hope of being spared, the battle’s aftermath, the retreat south with the wounded, and throughout, flashbacks to his past life.
Conner Dumont is a seventeen year old replacement who joins the common soldiers as a battle erupts at Spotsylvania. Violent death strikes quickly around him and begins a numbing process in which his past life and relationships are told in dreams and memories which provide a safe haven from the daily terror of combat. Those around him are mostly coarse men, with little to no education, some totally ignorant and bewildered. They have the understandably narrow view of self preservation. They fight to survive, but feel the adrenaline rush of anger and fear. Some are compelled by a sense of decency but others kill and mutilate out of pure hate.
Camaraderie with the common soldiers helps him partially stave off the growing realization that all the death and destruction around him is unnecessary and useless, that he and his comrades are being sacrificed for someone else’s war, and that his heritage does not equate with justice. This awareness is offset by pride, the refusal to yield, a culture of violence, and the discovery of a personal knack for the mechanics of combat.
The unrelenting carnage of the fighting is the final blow to Conner’s tenuous grip on reality. His mind is blasted by the horror and death of battle, temporarily escaping into his own world where the conflicts of past and present play out. Mental retreat is complicated by the absurdity of war and the growing realization that he is fighting to preserve an inherent evil. His inability to repress the truth leads him initially to despair that his entire world is ending, but as time and distance pass, illusion slips away and he awakens to the understanding that he has the capacity to go on. The old world has disappeared, but a new one is beginning, and having survived the horrors of war, he knows that having a second chance is precious.
I am a Psychiatrist in private practice in Charleston, SC and this is my first book length fiction. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Perry E. Trouche, M.D.

perry trouche @ 2007-10-06 10:59:03 [ID:20510]

I knew about you from a writer net members, my interest is to publish my book of 400 pp
through your red rose press .
Please , write me if possible .
regards
Hussein Faraj Chaaban

Hussein Faraj Chaaban @ 2008-01-22 10:05:29 [ID:73911]