When Does "The Marines of Autumn" (2000) Take Place?
"The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War" is a historical fiction novel written by James Brady and released June 8th, 2000.
It takes place in the year:
We know this because the narrator says "autumn of 1950" twice in the opening pages.
1950 AD
We know this because the narrator says "autumn of 1950" twice in the opening pages.
Furthermore, a line reads: "MacArthur himself, hungry even at seventy for a military encore after five years of playing shogun to the Japanese" and the real-world General Douglas MacArthur was born in 1880 AD and thus was 70 years old in 1950 AD.
1880 + 70 = 1950.
Combined with the following line about Tom Verity's "old uniforms from five years ago" we can conclude it must be 5 years since the last war between the United States of America and Japan, World War II, which ended in 1945 AD.
1945 + 5 = 1950.
The majority of the story depicts the tragic real-world Battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean Civil War (1950 to 1953).
The main action of the novel ends on December 13th and the epilogue only described as being "in Christmas week", still within 1950 AD.
