Kay Merkel Boruff’s memoir Z.O.S.—Lust Blood Money & the CIA in Southeast Asia—a “zone of silence.”

In her memoir, Z.O.S. Kay Merkel Boruff writes:

“My eyes fell on the New York Times front page headlines glaring from the coffee-stained table in the Frankfurt airport:

 ‘CIA Pilot Killed: First Casualty Plain of Jars’

“The CIA pilot was my husband Jon Christian Merkel. Hours earlier, in the Air America office in Bangkok, I was instructed not to discuss Merk’s death with anyone. A fellow passenger, who knew I was an Air America wife, asked, Anyone you knew? I replied, A friend.”

From 1968 to 1970, Kay Merkel’s life is frightening yet exciting, disturbing yet enlightening: Buddhist monks immolate themselves; rockets fall in backyards; picnics occur at Con Son Island; Bible study groups convene. She washes sheets in the bathtub and counts each baht and later dresses in silks and gold and travels through Southeast Asia. Surrounded by prostitution and drugs, she adjusts to Asian mores. On February 18, 1970, her 24-carat life shatters when Jon is killed flying in Laos. Kay returns to Texas, a CIA widow with PTSD.

In Dallas, she teaches 38 years at The Hockaday School, a 104-year-old private girls’ school. The Perot daughters, Stanley Marcus’ granddaughters, and the Bush twins are students in her classroom. Jane Fonda goes to Hanoi, Robert McNamara writes In Retrospection, and her sixth-grade students and she walked the Wall at the Viêt-Nam Memorial on the annual trip to Washington. Each year, the girls ask her the same question, Why is Jon’s name not on the Wall? Buried in her subconscious, a nervous breakdown suffered in college, the suicide of her best friend, the child she adopted and lost, and a life viewed from a learning differenced vision of the world—a Carpe Diem mantra, living in her “zone of silence,” she searches for adventures, attending Burning Man, exploring Angor Wat, studying in France with Robert Olen Butler, traveling to Israel, Paris, Amsterdam, and climbing Wayna Picchu on her 71^st birthday.

Pre-Release Praise for Z.O.S.

“…an utterly compelling and smartly written tale of the Viet-Nam War and its aftermath.”

—Robert Olen Butler Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Told in lyrical and vivid style that is at times dazzling in its specificity and intensity, Z.O.S.

fills the gap in the story of our national experience of Viet-Nam.”

—C.W. Smith author Understanding Women.

“Read this book if you want to encounter a bold new voice!”

—Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk President The Memnosyne Institute

Graduate The Hockaday School ‘96

Copies of Z.O.S. are available at all major booksellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Black Rose Writing

Print and Electronic review copies available upon request

About Black Rose Writing

Black Rose Writing is an independent publishing house that strongly believes in developing a personal relationship with their authors. The Texas-based publishing company doesn’t see authors as clients or just another number on a page, but rather as individual people… people who deserve an honest review of their material and to be paid traditional royalties without ever paying any fees to be published.