The incredible story of Catherine Leroy, one of the few woman
photographers during the Vietnam War, told by an award-winning
journalist and children's author
From award-winning journalist and children's book author Mary Cronk
Farrell comes the inspiring and fascinating story of the woman who gave
a human face to the Vietnam War. Close-Up on War tells the story of
French-born Catherine Leroy, one of the war's few woman photographers,
who documented some of the fiercest fighting in the 20-year conflict.
Although she had no formal photographic training and had never traveled
more than a few hundred miles from Paris before, Leroy left home at age
21 to travel to Vietnam and document the faces of war. Despite being
told that women didn't belong in a "man's world," she was cool under
fire, gravitated toward the thickest battles, went along on the
soldiers' slogs through the heat and mud of the jungle, crawled through
rice paddies, and became the only official photojournalist to parachute
into combat with American soldiers. Leroy took striking photos that gave
America no choice but to look at the realities of war--showing what it
did to people on both sides--from wounded soldiers to civilian
casualties.
Later, Leroy was gravely wounded from shrapnel, but that didn't keep her
down more than a month. When captured by the North Vietnamese in 1968,
she talked herself free after photographing her captors, scoring a cover
story in Life magazine. A recipient of the George Polk Award, one of
the most prestigious awards in journalism, Leroy was one of the most
well-known photographers in the world during her time, and her legacy of
bravery and compassion endures today.
Farrell interviewed people who knew Leroy, as well as military personnel
and other journalists who covered the war. In addition to a preface by
Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam War photographer Nick Ut and a foreword
by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Peter Arnett, the book includes an
author's note, endnotes, bibliography, timeline, and index.
