The Outside Lands

June 20, 2016
The Vietnam War is explored in Kohler’s debut novel. Living with their WWII-hero father after the death of their mother, siblings Jeannie and Kip Jackson are left to their own devices. Jeannie marries a young doctor and gets pregnant, while trouble-making Kip impulsively joins the Marines. In Vietnam in 1968, he quickly learns that surviving the jungle means making hard choices and becomes embroiled in a military crime. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Jeannie meets a 16-year-old girl, Lee Walker, who seduces her (sexually and politically) and leads her into the world of antiwar activism, where she is asked to forge medical letters for inductees hoping to be reclassified 4F. Although she is in over her head, Jeannie also tries to help her brother’s defense at court-martial. Although Jeannie, Kip, and Lee are all well-realized characters, the stateside chapters feel overstuffed and melodramatic. It is with the Vietnam War chapters that the author distinguishes herself. You would have to go back to Susan Fromberg Schaeffer’s Buffalo Afternoon to find a novel written by a civilian that so totally captures the nightmarish, psychedelic feel of a war that refuses to be relegated to the dusty pages of history. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Associates.

June 15, 2016
Set amid the social upheaval of the 1960s, Kohler's sensitive debut follows a pair of San Francisco siblings struggling to make sense of the roles that have been set out for them.After their mother's sudden death, 20-year-old Jeannie and 14-year-old Kip find themselves existentially and practically adrift. Over the course of the next few years, Jeannie trades secretarial school for a waitressing job, meets a nice doctor (a Goldwater supporter), gets pregnant, and marries him, becoming--on paper, at least--the epitome of 1960s domestic success. Meanwhile, Kip, restless and brooding, gets caught trying to rob a supposedly abandoned liquor store. In court, the judge presents him with two options: finish high school or join the military, and in spite of Jeannie and their World War II-veteran father, Kip decides to enlist in the Marine Corps. Kip and Jeannie have at least one thing in common, though: they're both trapped in lives that don't quite fit. In San Francisco, Jeannie--always conventional, even prim--becomes enchanted with a young woman involved in the underground anti-war movement. Across an ocean in Vietnam, Kip--overwhelmed by the extent of the violence and ill-suited to the constant humiliation of Marine life--finds himself accused of a horrific military crime. Against the wishes of her conservative in-laws, Jeannie becomes consumed by the case and, in the process, is forced to come to terms with the life she's built. Told in alternating perspectives, the novel takes a while to hit its stride, and the first sections nearly buckle under the weight of so many sepia-toned '60s cliches. But if it begins as a somewhat expected family period piece, the book progresses into something wholly original: dark, rich, and morally challenging.A haunting portrait of an era that only gets better as it goes along.

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