Dress Whites — John Phillips

A powerful collection of short stories that shines a light on a tumultuous time in America's history that forever changed our nation. A freshly made Marine Corps officer, with his new bride in tow, visits his family one last time before shipping out to Vietnam. A group of wayward souls living in a seedy Las Vegas hot-sheet motel find solace in each other, only to be devastated when one of them is unable to escape his demons. A teenager tries to convince his mother that his Amerasian girlfriend is worthy of the American Dream. A boxer returns from the war and takes a desperate fight to try to make a name for himself and enough money to look for his daughter. A brother left behind seeks his own random, brutal revenge. They are some of the characters of Dress Whites, a debut short-story collection by John Phillips, whose powerful fiction has been described as both muscular and sensitive. They are the stories of people who have been left behind in the years during and after the Vietnam War. Whether they served or remained at home, they are haunted years later by the far-off war that many of them still struggle to recover from today.