Lyn Bixby photo by Deirdre Coughlin attached.
Vermont Business Magazine Rootstock Publishing announces the January 6, 2026, release of The Pacifist, a historical thriller about standing up to power gone bad, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lyn Bixby of Northern Vermont.
It’s 1968, the deadliest year of the Vietnam war, and America is a combat zone where protesters are under attack as enemies of the nation. Lisa Thompson, a back-to-the-land hippie, is cutting firewood at her family’s Vermont farm when a stranger arrives to warn her the FBI is investigating her brother Chris, a Boston anti-war activist who was drafted.
When Chris refuses induction and has an “accident” that leaves him unconscious, Lisa heads to Boston to uncover the truth. After his suspicious death, Lisa faces two of the most powerful institutions in the world—the Army and the FBI. With the help of a civil rights lawyer, a newspaper editor, and a Vietnam combat veteran, Lisa navigates a labyrinth of corruption, lies, and murders to confront her brother’s killer.
“I set out to write an anti-war novel inspired by the Vietnam combat death of a college classmate, and I dedicated it to the young Vietnam draftees and soldiers who found the courage to defy the government to end that senseless, immoral war,” Bixby said. “We need that same kind of courage now.”
Lyn Bixby was drafted within weeks of graduating in 1969 from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. After leaving the Army, he became a newspaper journalist and received a range of awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. He and his wife Debbie were married in 1979 and live in Northern Vermont. They have two sons and three grandchildren.
The Pacifist (ISBN: 978-1-57869-211-8) is available for the book trade through Ingram and for the public everywhere books are sold or at www.rootstockpublishing.com, with autographed copies available from Green Mountain Books in Lyndonville, Vermont.
The book launch is 4:30 pm on Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Burke Mountain Club, 368 Vermont Route 114 in East Burke. It will be hosted by Kim Crady-Smith, owner of Green Mountain Books.
About Rootstock Publishing
Rootstock Publishing (rootstockpublishing.com) is a curated hybrid and traditional publishing house collaborating with authors—the rootstock of creative content. Rootstock’s books have won multiple awards, including, among others, the Eric Hoffer Award, the IPPY, Foreword INDIES, the IBPA Ben Franklin Award, Literary Titan, and IPNE Award. Founded in 2017 in Montpelier, Vermont, Rootstock has published more than eighty books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s books by authors from all over the globe.
11.18.2025. Montpelier, VT—Rootstock Publishing
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