Local author and subject of the award-winning documentary Severe Clear, Mike Scotti, will be having a special book signing and discussion of The Blue Cascade: A Memoir of Life After War on May 19 at Barnes and Noble in Eatontown (Monmouth Mall, Route 35.) The event is from 2 to 3:30 p.m. and is open to the public.
In The Blue Cascade, the author and subject of the award-wining documentary Severe Clear, charts a course from the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan through his re-acclimation to civilian life. Rather than own up to the fact that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Scotti charged ahead with his postwar plans to work Wall Street, “where men waged financial warfare upon one another.” But the more time passed, the more the ambitious former-Marine found himself engaged in a private battle against alcohol-fueled rages and the “blue cascade” of depression. Haunted by scenes of battlefield savagery he could not forget, Scotti contemplated suicide.
In his memoir, called an “unflinchingly honest account of an ex-Marine's struggle to re-acclimate to civilian life after returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom,” by Kirkus Reviews, Scotti reveals that sometimes the hardest battle is the one after the war. He eventually emerges with the wisdom that for sufferers of post-traumatic stress, “it’s ok if you’re not ok.”
