Well, I really enjoyed re-reading Beach Head, there were so many bits I missed the first time round! As you have often pointed out, there are many interesting aspects to it. One of the things that really struck me was that the book was (I assume) originally marketed as a war novel but that’s literally only half the story. I started to think about how it might have been promoted better as a conspiracy theory thriller in the style of ‘All the President’s Men’ or by tapping more into the reflections on the Vietnam war.
I had a little chat with Perplexity about it and they suggested making more of a feature of the dual timeline. One idea it had that really appealed to me was ‘generational reckoning’ which I do think is in there as a concept. They also suggested some interesting taglines such as:
“The battle ended in 1945. The secret didn’t.”
“Two wars, one secret: from the Pacific to Vietnam, the story they buried.”
“He saw it happen. She won’t let it stay hidden.”
“A novel of war, memory, conscience and government secrecy”
I don’t know, maybe the thriller element wasn’t strong enough to sell the book that way. Anyway, I wondered if you had any thoughts on it.
I'm glad you enjoyed your re-reading!
The way both Wingmen and Beach Head were marketed is something that intrigues me quite a bit. You're right, Beach Head was sold as a war novel (and it did fool me at first), although it's much more than that. The other books advertised within its only edition reinforce this idea.
I think part of the problem was Case's own vision of his work, as well as his ambitions. He probably believed it would be easier to establish himself as a successful author with a "war novel" — even Wingmen’s cover art seems to focus more on the war than on the gay romance, and he said it "would have some appeal to straight readers."
That wasn't a smart assumption, though. As I said before, WWII battle fiction was already an oversaturated theme when Case began writing his novels — as far as I know, there aren't any truly memorable titles from this subgenre released during that specific period. So, Wingmen and Beach Head went unnoticed, as they were seen as just dime-a-dozen, generic books. That's my theory about it.
There's also the fact that Case seemed to avoid the "gay author" label ("I don't classify a book as a gay or straight novel" / "A lot of gay people may buy your work, but there's not enough gay people to support them.") Which is a shame, because small gay publishers were starting to emerge around that time, and he probably could have had his work accepted by one of them. Incidentally, I think Wingmen would have been more successful if it had been released (or re-released?) in the 1990s. It wouldn't have made him rich, but it would have given him a (niche) audience. I think he adopted an "all or nothing" strategy, and when he didn't get "all," he simply accepted "nothing."* It makes me wonder how things would have gone if Avon had published that 1974 gay novel of his...
Anyway, I think I should also put this quote from Zebra Books’ Wikipedia article here:
By keeping a low budget, small staff, and hiring overlooked if not desperate authors, they built Zebra into a powerhouse of cheap, consumable literature
It seems that Zebra was his last hopeful shot at being published by a major publisher. Perhaps they told him they would publish Beach Head as a war novel, and he simply accepted it. Who knows for certain... 🤷♂️
But your "conspiracy theory thriller" approach seems like a much better idea to me. I love the tagline “He saw it happen. She won’t let it stay hidden”!
*This seems to have changed when Wingmen was finally re-released, though.
