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Nath Jones

Nath Jones

About

Nath Jones received an MFA in creative writing from Northwestern University where she was a nominee for The Best New American Voices 2010.  Her publishing credits continue to accumulate and include PANK Magazine, There Are No Rules, and Sailing World.  Nath’s work is influenced by small towns, small business, the army, the ocean, and cornfields. She is in the process of releasing four collections of short works and offering them to readers as e-books. Nath Jones lives and writes in Chicago.

A King Under Siege

A King Under Siege

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Description

<p><span style="color:rgb(15,17,17);font-family:'Amazon Ember', Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants' Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost. Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding. The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless. He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects. Richard's inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.</span><br /><span class="a-text-bold" style="color:rgb(15,17,17);font-family:'Amazon Ember', Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;">B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree!</span></p>

Story Behind The Book

There were many reasons to write this book, but one of the most vivid occurred amidst the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. I was reading the news and came across a picture of a female soldier seeming to gloat above torture victims. The starving, bloodied men piled at her feet were totally dehumanized: naked, hooded, likely sodomized or just back from the water board. The female soldier--a young woman, a girl really--was smiling. I looked at that photograph as long as I could. I thought, "How could a woman do that?" Men, maybe. But a woman? No. And then I thought back to my state of mind when I joined the Army in 1995. Rage. Aggression. Violence. Lack of respect for others. Self-loathing. You name it. Whatever bullet-point is on the back of a brochure in a psychologist's office, I qualified. But I never went to war. Thank God. And I do not think I would ever have done what the woman in the picture was so happy to do. What I did think was, "How could I reach that woman? What might I be able to say to stop her?"

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Reviews

<span class="commentBody">‎&quot;I was really blown away by this series of shorts.&quot; -- Ashton Amo<br /><br /><a href="http://ashtonthebookblogger.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-war-is-language-101-short-works.html"><span>http://</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>ashtonthebookblogger.blogsp</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>ot.com/2011/03/</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>review-war-is-language-101-</span><span class="word_break"></span>short-works.html</a><br /><br /> &quot;Her arsenal of words is substantial, and she has the same command of phonics that makes EE Cummings poems so effective.&quot; -- Alice Yeh<br /><br /><a href="http://www.hideandread.com/2011/09/war-is-language-101-short-works-nath.html"><span>http://</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>www.hideandread.com/2011/</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>09/</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>war-is-language-101-short-w</span><span class="word_break"></span>orks-nath.html</a><br /><br /> &quot;The third and final section about letters to a fake advice columnist was titled Letters When Gods Won't Do and this was my favourite section. Some of them were hilarious and I felt that I had to pass my Kindle across to my wife to let her read them, I think she started getting annoyed when I ended up doing it for nearly every letter at one point.&quot; -- David King <br /><br /><a href="http://killie-booktalk.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html"><span>http://</span><span class="word_break"></span><span>killie-booktalk.blogspot.co</span><span class="word_break"></span>m/2011_04_01_archive.html</a></span>