Courtesy of The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-pauline-lowry/qa-with-david-w-peters-ab_b_5898174.html
In his memoir “Death Letter: God, Sex, and War,” David W. Peters writes with black humor and grace about his deployment to Iraq as an Army chaplain, and the dark days following his return to the U.S.
Faced with tragic memories of his time in Iraq, his wife’s infidelity, and his subsequent divorce, in “Death Letter” Peters grapples with his faith in God, even as he suffers the joys and indignities of coming-of-age sexually while in his mid-30s. “Death Letter” is by turns tragic and hilarious, and Peters’ writing is reminiscent of the painful beauty and nostalgia of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”
I spoke with David W. Peters about “Death Letter.”
Mary Pauline Lowry (MPL): You call your memoir “Death Letter: God, Sex, and War” and in the beginning of the book you explain that every solider who goes to war writes one–a letter to be sent to his family in the event of his death. In the first chapter, you say that the book is a death letter to all those who lost something in war. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Dying & Death Talk 