Michael Lee, a Vietnam vet for whom ‘writing was everything’

Deep warmth, outrageous laughs, great literary chops -- but demons too

That Michael Lee is not a famous writer, not celebrated far and wide after his death in Brewster on May 14 at 76, shows once again that life ain’t fair.

But as with everything about Mike, it’s more complicated than that. Great as he was, he had demons that held him back, unseen wounds and scars, struggles with self-worth despite being cherished by many for his humor, camaraderie and insights.

“I never laughed so hard in all my life as when I was in his presence,” remembers fellow Vietnam vet and playwright Art Devine at Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster. “Yet he had this dark side that could become destructive.”

“He was the epitome of an artist, extremely emotional,” says his wife Julia Cataldo Lee. “That created depth to his writing and complications to his relationships – I hope that’s a good way to put it. But writing was everything to him.”

Michael Lee was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, his parents James and Jean moving to Framingham, Massachusetts. On the wild side, he faced an iconic youthful decision; a judge let him know that he could either go to prison, or enlist in the military. He chose the Marines.

A good swimmer, he became a diving instructor, stationed on Okinawa, but this being the late 1960s he was headed to Vietnam. Already he was writing, sending dispatches to the Framingham newspaper, contributing to “Stars and Stripes,” the military publication. When the infamous Tet Offensive began in 1968 he was in Khe Sanh, punching out “dailies,” reports during a siege that lasted 77 days, North Vietnamese pounding the base with mortar and rockets from high hills above a valley where Americans inexplicably chose to squat. Those who survived spent much of their time underground; “home is where you dig it” became the phrase.

Mike was wounded more than once, including a plane crash that killed most onboard; Purple Heart. Whole platoons were lost, friends. When he got home he never talked about it, though the experience haunted him the rest of his life.

“He didn’t want to express anything, rage, guilt, nothing,” says Devine. “Vets had an expression: He wanted to pull the shades down and hide in the bunker.”

Mike headed to Miami where he got back to diving, including searching for unexploded ordnance and as an underwater bodyguard for an ichthyologist. “Mike would swim around the guy with a cattle prod to keep the sharks off,” laughs Julia.

He also became an editor for Miami Magazine. While he didn’t articulate his own hurt, his writing became a superb expression. His prose was masculine in the Hemingway mode. His sense of humor was outrageously great, far better than the literary bulls who took themselves so seriously. He wrote short (though always aspired to be a novelist). When his first book of stories came out years later, “Paradise Dance,” published by Ira Wood and LeapFrog Press in Wellfleet, set in “Albright” (which bore resemblance to Framingham), one of his idols and friends Norman Mailer captured it well in book jacket praise:

“Michael Lee’s short stories have a rare quality. They are tough, hard-bitten, and surprisingly sensitive to the nuances that motivate behavior in people we assume too quickly are without nuance. What a good read!”

Writing wasn’t a gold mine. Mike worked as a chef at Serena’s Restaurant, a South Wellfleet institution, where he met is first wife Kathy Selleck in 1978, marrying in 1983. They started a rib joint called Bahama Mama’s in 1981, a shack also on the highway in South Wellfleet, 300 or 400 square feet tops, outdoor tables made from big wooden spools. It felt like a transplant from the Florida keys, because it was.

Michael earned a Masters from Emerson College. When I created The Cape Cod Voice in 2001 I asked if he would become a columnist and literary editor. For nearly seven years he never missed a deadline, made people laugh and cry, and spearheaded literary editions that featured remarkable interviews with world-class writers, conversations transcribed so readers could appreciate both writer and interviewer; Mailer, James Carroll, David McCullough, the list goes on.

Note masculinity – Mike was adored by women, but gravitated to the lions. When his non-fiction was published by Wordcraft of Oregon Press in 2007, that dichotomy was implied in the name he chose, pulled from one of the pieces, “In an Elevator with Brigitte Bardot.”

He and Cape Cod Times columnist Dan McCullough were good friends (if sometimes competitive), and shared a physical trait; big guys. They teamed up to create a show called “A Quarter Ton of Fiction,” easily tipping the scales to qualify. It was hilarious, nuanced. A much longer run was the annual “New Works” nights and weekends Mike built and hosted, funneling a flow of mostly local writers to the Academy in Orleans for joyful celebrations spanning more than a decade. Mike’s reads always were culminations.

He officiated at multiple weddings, mentored writers, could make you laugh so hard you alternated between hugging your sides and wiping your eyes. Then came moments when he was hard on everyone, himself included, uncomfortable in his own skin, blue eyes flinching with a pain he would not confront head-on. Those demons caught up; his last years were lonely.

Now he’s gone, and as he might quip, “Who knows where? Not me.” Then again, there is none better than James Carroll to infer, and we have tailor-made conjecture because Carroll concluded his introduction to Mike’s first book this way:

“What is eternity, Lee asks, but standing under a fly ball, driving to Taos, waiting for the ambulance, thinking of what to engrave on a tombstone, keeping a secret when there is none, regretting a marriage, asking for a date, hoping for the Red Sox? And what is the ordinary world when observed with feeling, wisdom, generosity, and, yes, love – if not paradise after all? Such is the precious, brave work of Michael Lee in this book. These stories open into eternity like that, and they faithfully render the earth – this one, ours – as the garden we wrongly think we lost.”

Michael Lee is survived by his wife Julia, ex-wife and nurse Kathy Selleck, both on Cape Cod, cousins Rob Lee in Virginia and Katherine Lee Muir in Florida. Funeral details are not yet available, but expect Mike to be buried with military honors in the National Cemetery in Bourne.

He died with no financial resources. Julia has created a GoFundMe page https://gofund.me/6964651a to raise support to put him to rest.

Send’em if you got’em.

(Observant readers will know that my plan had been to share part two of experiences in the immigration and citizenship world of E-160 that I began last week. Mortality intervened. That will come next.)

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