Jacob's Novels
Col. Jules M. Seletz, MD

THE BOOK

Jacob's Novels, Book Four in a Quartet, Pass In Review, begins with Jacob M. Stein's return to the United States after three years in West Germany. In Book One, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we read about Jake's heritage, his coming of age, and his failure in college. Book Two, Jacob's Ladder, describes his years at VMI and his deployment to Korea, after which he successfully obtains a medical degree, completes post-graduate surgical training and undergoes marriage. Book Three, Jacob's Travels, describes his return form Vietnam, his divorce and remarriage, journeys while in the army to European capital cities, Eastern bloc nations, Russia, Israel, Morocco in North Africa and Botswana in sub-equatorial Africa.

Now he returns to the United States with his second wife, Rhoda, on the QE2 ocean liner and reports to his new duty station at West Point, home to 4,000 cadets at the United States Military Academy.

Jake arrives in the Mid-Hudson Valley coincident to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi troops invading Kuwait. The following spring finds Jake in Southwest Asia, enduring the harsh desert climate and atmosphere of the Persian Gulf.

He returns to West Point to find he's being age-mandatory retired, but obtains an extension until 1994, during which time he meets his computer, mentors cadets and attends his 40th reunion at the Virginia Military Institute.

Recruited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations—JCAHO—he subsequently joins their workforce as a part-time physician surveyor after retirement from the military.

During the remaining six months of the year, Jake begins to dabble in creative writing to fulfill a lifelong desire to write the next great American novel. He produces a Quartet, Pass In Review, that is completed around the end of the century. It chronicles the past 100 years of history as a background to his heritage and life.

The final pages describe his frustration in attempting to find a literary agent or interest a publisher in his creation. Attempting to become a published author, Jake writes Sentinel Event, a mystery/medical thriller he feels is more in keeping with what the American population desires to read about ... sex, drugs, violence, prostitution and murder. While continuing in vain to arouse interest in Pass In Review, he ends up writing an entire series of mystery/medical thriller sentinel event books. In the end, when Denlinger's Publishers unexpectedly agrees to take on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Book One of Pass In Review, he turns to the Internet.

FOREWORD

When planning to write such a novel as Pass in Review, I knew that on December 31, 1999, the world would witness the end of a year, a decade, a century and a millennium. It seemed appropriate to write historical fiction that spanned the twentieth century; one that traced the progress and evolution of technology; from the telegraph to cyberspace, from the horse and buggy to outer space.

A novel of that length would not be acceptable to modern publishing standards, so it seemed fitting for it to become a quartet of four books, each to be published sequentially around the end of the century. The title of the Quartet, Pass in Review, reflects the command issued at military ceremonies, a command repeated frequently throughout all four books, for troops to march past a reviewing officer. It is also meant to indicate a review of the lives of five generations of a semi-fictional family experiencing monumental changes throughout the century. Finally, it pertains to a historical review—social, scientific, technological and geopolitical of the entire 20th century.

Book One, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, covers a period from the end of the nineteenth century until the late Forties. Book Two, Jacob's Ladder, begins where Book One finishes and continues into the Sixties. Jacob's Travels, Book Three, transports the reader into the Nineties and Book Four, Jacob's Novels ends at the beginning of a new millennium—Y2K.

As a surgeon and military officer for 45 years and the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant of the late 19th century, a parallel of my own life became the basis for the semi-fictional family. The books include a Jewish ethnic background; a strong Military presence; Medical training, including evolution of modern medical technology; Prohibition and the Great Depression; the cultural changes and technological progress that took place throughout each of the ten decades and participation in the wars and military conflicts of the era. These included the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, the cold war in Europe and finally, the Persian Gulf War—Desert Storm.

I am delighted you have chosen to read all four books of Pass in Review. I know you will enjoy traveling through time, from a tiny shetel in nineteenth-century Russia, to the capital cities of Europe, sub-equatorial Africa, parts of the United States, the Middle East, Southwest Asia and finally ?to an idyllic setting in the heart of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

It is my realistic belief that some future author will use Pass in Review as a basis for writing, at the end of the twenty-first century, its sequel, Pass in Review Again.

DEDICATION

The author offers his extreme gratitude to Trudy Stockton,
Library Aide at the Lincoln Public Library
in Lincoln, New Hampshire,
for her most generous contribution—voluminous hours
of meticulously proofreading the entire manuscript,
line by line and word by word

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As Jacob's Novels—Book Four of the Quartet, Pass In Review, goes to press, I must acknowledge the numerous members of my family for their years of patiently watching me at the word processor, proofreading manuscripts, offering constructive criticism and listening calmly to my ideas and explanations.

I must also mention those at Denlinger's Publishing Ltd. for their patience and understanding as well as their assistance in preparation of manuscripts to become available in the form of a printed and bound book.

Most of all, I owe a monstrous debt of gratitude to Marcia Buckingham, the Acquisitions Editor at Denlinger's, for her enthusiastic encouragement and for my opportunity to break into print when no other publisher or literary agent I had contacted over a five-year period of time demonstrated any confidence or faith in my writing.

THE AUTHOR

Jules M. Seletz graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1953 as a second lieutenant and the Chicago Medical School in 1958 with an MD. Following five years of postgraduate training at the Boston City Hospital, he practiced as a General and Peripheral Vascular Surgeon for 35 years.

He enjoyed a 41-year military career in the United States Army that included a 19-year break in service to practice surgery in the civilian sector, rising to the rank of full colonel. He served as a second lieutenant in the field artillery in 1953 during the Korean conflict and later in his military career, Colonel Seletz deployed as a military surgeon to Morocco in North Africa in 1985, West Germany in 1987, Botswana in sub-equatorial Africa in 1989 and finally to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in Southwest Asia during Desert Storm in 1991. He was retired from the army in 1994 while stationed at West Point.

As the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, Dr. Seletz used his own life, during which he spent 45 years as a surgeon and military officer, as the basis for the semi-fictional family found in the Quartet, Pass In Review.

He feels this work should appeal to a wide and diverse readership with its Jewish ethnic background; a strong military influence; medical training, including evolution of modern medical technology; Prohibition and the Great Depression; the United States participation in the "Wars" and the cultural changes and technological progress down through the decades. The historical content should be of interest to our student population.

Dr. Seletz is a part-time resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, but lives and writes in Lincoln, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains where he enjoys skiing and mountain hiking with his wife of Acadian heritage. Together, they have seven children and twelve grandchildren.

In addition to the Quartet, Pass In Review, with its four books, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jacob's Ladder, Jacob's Travels and Jacob's Novels, Dr. Seletz has also written two other historical fiction novels; Pulp, Potatoes, and Ployes, an Acadian Odyssey and Lincoln Logs, the establishment of the Town of Lincoln, New Hampshire.

Dr. Seletz spent seven years as a physician surveyor for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations—JCAHO—the nationally and internationally accepted accrediting body for the Healthcare Industry. He had several occasions to survey hospitals that had experienced untoward incidents, mishaps and catastrophic outcomes known as sentinel events.

From this experience he has also written five mystery/medical thriller novels about fictitious events: Sentinel Event; Not Another Sentinel Event; Code Pink, A Sentinel Event; West Point's Sentinel Event and Sentinel Event on the High Seas.

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