After years of struggle, T.K. Marion is regaining his health, an outcome readers may also wish for Capt. Jon Westmoreland, the central character in Marion's recently published Civil War novel, "Kill the Devil" (Thirteen Stars Press).

Marion is a pen name used by 56-year-old Newmanstown resident Tom Kubizek, whose bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts in 2003 led him to quit his job as a successful operations manager and continue a downward spiral during which he lost his girlfriend, car and home to bankruptcy. He was diagnosed three years ago as bipolar and now through treatment and medication appears on the road to recovery.

His latest work centers around the efforts of Westmoreland, a Union officer, to fulfill his assignment - the assassination of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

"The war was dragging on, people are tired and they wanted (President) Lincoln to end it all," said Marion, who prefers his pseudonym. "What would they do?
"Kill Lee" was the response from Lincoln's advisors, who felt shooting the general, a confidant to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a rallying figure for the Southern war effort, would shorten the conflict.

Historically, "I'm sure assassination was thought of many times," Marion reflected, although there was never any proof of such schemes. However, he said there were reports that correspondence had been discovered referring to Lee as "the Devil," from which Marion derived the title of his 315-page, self-published softcover, his third novel.

Marion, an unpretentious, red-haired man with an affinity for cowboy attire and Western lore, said he related to Lincoln, who was known to be under mental duress as the conflict dragged on from 1861-65, taking the lives of some 600,000 soldiers.

"A lot has to do with (my) bipolar," he said. "I knew about Lincoln's depression ... not that I used it as the premise of the book." Still, its first sentence reads: "The President of the United States of America had a terrible headache."
"It started the night before when he and members of his cabinet were locked in heated debate" about recent causalities near Cedar Creek in Northern Virginia, a discussion that eventually leads to the assassination plot, the text elaborates. However, Westmoreland's small contingent of soldiers is ambushed as they enter enemy territory early in their mission and only he is spared.

Marion describes the scene:
"The lone survivor of the attack, Westmoreland, lay unconscious in a nest of wet underbrush. Like his comrades, he would never meet the soldiers responsible for bushwhacking his team. ... Behind them the ambushers left four animals dead and rotting, five enemy horse soldiers killed, and another not knowing whether he would live or not. It was five minutes after the rebels had fled when the rain stopped and the sun appeared in a gorgeous blue sky."

"I try to be concise," the author said. "I don't want to bore the reader with a lot of details." Westmoreland is eventually taken in by a slave girl who discovers him on the banks of a stream. Marion said he took care to make sure her dialogue and that of the soldiers, men of varied backgrounds, was historically accurate.
For example, he relied greatly on a book of black period poetry when researching language flow.
And "I don't use the N-word or S-word," he said. "I don't like that stuff. I don't know why a lot of writers do.

"This is a book about duty, patriotism and courage ... the ideals this country was founded on. I wasn't going to put these guys (on both sides of the conflict) in a bad light. This was an American war. (Who's to say) who's good and who's bad. ... I can relate it to the soldiers today doing their duty."

"Kill the Devil" was no overnight effort. Marion, a divorced father of two adult children, began writing in 1996, working sporadically on the manuscript until it was ready for final "touch-up" in 2005. The work was published in July 2007.
"I've always been a history buff," said Marion, who was born in Portsmouth, Va., and, as the son of a career naval officer, grew up mostly in Norfolk, Va. "I had so much fun reading history (that) I thought about (becoming) a history teacher. (And) I grew up in the South so the Civil War was big for me."

While Marion relied on his knowledge of the conflict in constructing the novel, research also played an important role in plot and character development. That's "50 percent of the fun, that's why I love it," he said. The author viewed television documentaries about the war and visited museums such as the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg as well as the Gettysburg battlefield and battle sites in Virginia.

For Marion, writing is a straightforward, uncomplicated process, not cluttered with outlines or other structured guidelines. "I just start the first sentence and go from there," he explained. "I don't even know the ending (and) I'm not a flowery writer. ... I just like to keep the story flowing."

Although he "hated to read and write in high school," Marion took the bait when his sister-in-law later challenged him to produce a book. "She said 'If you write it, I'll read it,' " Marion recalled. "She liked it (and) it was actually a good diversion for me," he said of that initial attempt, "The Tenth Symphony," a World War II novel was published in 2002. His other work is "Only the Beginning," a romantic comedy that came out in 2004.

Marion is currently working on a Cold War spy thriller, "East Wind, Rain," expected to be published this year. His goal, explained Marion, is "to get off disability (payments) and hopefully my writing will be full time." "My agenda includes writing because that's what I love most," he said. "Another goal is to talk to businesses about the dangers of mental illness in the business place because I know it firsthand." Perhaps "down the road," Marion added, he may write about his personal bipolar experiences, but he noted that "I'm not ready for something like that now."

Marion has also established a foundation for cystic fibrosis sufferers, a disease that in 1964 took the life of his brother James. "I'm currently accumulating funds and hope to give a(n educational) scholarship this year," he said.

"I don't want to be the norm. I want to be me and do a little something different in life," Marion emphasized. "And this" - he paused, touching a copy of "Kill the Devil" - "is different."