A Story Like Mine

The World War II Recollections of Paul W. Fleming

 

A Story Like Mine was created through the magic of oral history: I interviewed my father at very great length, recording a total of about seven hours of my questions and his answers, digressions, corrections, and ruminations. I then transcribed all this material, edited it into a coherent whole, and compiled all this into a mock-up version that I gave my father for his 75th birthday. Immediately he read it and found many lapses in his memory and my interpretation. This led to another round of interviews, transcription, and editing in order to produce this final version. The words and the stories are my father's; the shaping of the words into sentences and paragraphs, and finally into a single narrative, is mine.

This was a wonderful exercise for us both, and here's my advice to anyone who loves someone with stories to tell: get them on tape now!

Foreword to A Story Like Mine

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

 

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