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Snowflakes on
the Don is Lee North’s special contribution to the necessary remembrance of
a little known part of military history as well as the history of WWII. The
author’s father, like mine, played a significant role in winning that war and
Lee and I have discovered many more common links, including an ancestry that
traces back through royal families of Europe. Another common link is that,
unlike our predecessors, we both chose to forge paths in our lives with pens and
word processors rather than with swords and guns. But perhaps that which we
share most is our vision is of a world where war is dropped altogether from the
list of arts, a vision we do our best to contribute to through our writing and
other forms of civic activism.
In
addition to having the honor of knowing Lee and of introducing this book, I had
the unique honor of serving as the original publisher of Snowflakes on the
Don, in the form of an e-book of the first kind: a book on floppy disk. Lee,
whose pioneering spirit is at least equal to mine, courageously accepted my
offer to publish Snowflakes in that medium, a format which preceded the
advent of downloadable e-books and portable e-book reading devices. Although the
early e-books that my company produced were not nearly as popular as books in
print, Snowflakes was attractively presented and well received by the
audience we were able to reach without a significant advertising budget.
Among
the members of that audience was a renowned film-maker’s wife who exchanged a
few emails with me not long after publication. For a while it looked like a sale
of screenplay rights was imminent. Unfortunately, the film-maker decided against
the proposed project, not because he felt the story was unworthy or lacked
quality but because he felt that Eastern Europeans would not welcome its
production, that this particular piece of history remains too painful to
remember. My view was and remains very different in that I believe that this is
precisely why the story cries out for a larger audience of the kind best reached
via film: the men whose lives were lost in service to their country and to
the world should never be forgotten.
At this point, a few more years have elapsed and Snowflakes on the Don
has finally found its way to the printed page. Of course, this kind of
publishing is not new to a veteran author like Lee, who has had numerous
excellent historical and other hardcover works published by houses with names
any reader would recognize and any writer would envy. What makes this print
version important is that it will reach a broader spectrum of readers, including
readers who prefer a book they can take into the bathtub. More important is that
this overlooked chapter of history is one step closer to adaptation as a
screenplay and major movie production. I look forward to the day I can watch it
at a local theater and on DVD.
D. Alan Eastwood, e-publisher
Blue Knight Enterprises
7 Carriage House Court
Hyde Park, NY 12538
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