A journey revealed at the Co-op

A book reading by well-known author and creative thinker Doug Anderson was presented Tuesday in the UConn Co-op. Anderson's memoir "Keep Your Head Down" reveals the story of a young man and his journey from boyhood to his experiences in the Vietnam war.

Anderson has taught creative writing courses at UConn for years.

At yesterday's reading, Anderson told the audience that he once wanted to be an actor, but after coming home from the Vietnam war, he began using his creative energy to write.

Anderson is an award-winning poet and "Keep Your Head Down" is his first book of prose.

He began his book reading presentation bluntly when he said, "I'm going to read about sex in the 1950s. Real and imagined."

This tone encompassed Anderson's piece as he shared passages that best define himself as a writer.

The first stories Anderson shared were of his boyhood and circulated around his young exposure to sexual content.

He described being brought to strip clubs with his mother and her boyfriends, and thinking to himself, "[…] what a great mom she'd be" while watching the performers.

Anderson described the realities of his childhood further with memories of being brought to a bar - again with his mother and her boyfriend - and a growing desire to learn how to play the drums after listening to bands there.

Anderson also shared memories of his life during 1967 and his time in Vietnam. In order to complete this part of his memoir, Anderson interviewed former soldiers he knew from the war, though his own platoon and team had all died by the time he began researching and writing for the book.

He made it very clear that he was opposed to the war after brutally and honestly describing how fellow soldiers were drafted and expected to kill when some were only 18-years-old.

Anderson described the routine of each day in Vietnam with a quote from his book: "We could be on a camping trip. We haven't seen any action in months."

Anderson revealed in his book that he took up photography as a new hobby and went back to Vietnam to take pictures of the people there. He described this as a way of getting to know the people there. He said that many of the Vietnamese people would "[…] stare fearlessly into the lens [of his camera]."