Ms. Asher is a good listener, and she has spent a lot of time with men in bed. This is a tale of the hospitalized servicemen that the author met while touring with the U.S.O.'s newly-formed volunteer Hospital Sketching Program (1943-1946). Artists in this program traveled to military hospitals and spent a week in each. Drawings provided entertainment and had a therapeutic value for the immobile G.I.'s who were unable to attend the usual U.S.O. shows because of disabling wounds and/or psychiatric problems. "I walked in and found there a silent parade of young kids in white hospital beds with arms strung up or legs poised in rigid marching position-tied up in traction… Beds are three or four deep on either side of a center aisle and the aisle is long-rows of men all lying on their backs in goose-step." Transcripts of Asher's letters represent a substantial portion of the text. Letters and narrative are equally detailed, often humorous, and offer an on-the-scene perspective of her times. In one letter she writes: "I'm glad you won't mind being my diary on these trips. It is the only way I shall be able to record my adventures. And a diary that answers is the kind to have!" Numerous illustrations enhance the text.
Lila Oliver Asher
(2002), 2008, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, 224 pp.
ISBN: 9780788420450
101-A2045
