"When he was an infant, he always had a little cloth book in his hand; he was always looking through it," she said. "He drove us nuts in our station wagon, reading out loud on the way to his grandma's house in Fresno."

Steven Vincent became an amateur writer in his teen years, and his work ended up on the back of Stouffer's Stuffing boxes, local newspapers and Homestead High School's school paper in the early 70s.

Eventually, his ambition to write would take him across the country and later across the Atlantic Ocean, in two trips to the Middle East. There he would research what would become his first book, Into the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq, which was just released in early November.

The tales in his book of a war-torn country are a far cry from Vincent's early works in the South Bay.

When he was 15, the Palo Alto Times held a contest to see who could write the best Christmas story, and--to his father's surprise--Vincent won second place with a story of a Salvation Army bell-ringing Santa Claus freezing to death outside in the cold.

According to his father, Charles, the first time Vincent he got paid for his writing was when Stauffers, the prepared-food company, picked a poem he wrote called "Let Them Eat Stuffing," and used on their packaging. Vincent made $20 for the poem.

Later, he would help turn Homestead High School's newspaper into a National Lampoon-style satirical publication, with stories of torture chambers in the basement of the school.

"It was the kind of stuff you'd imagine smart-ass high school kids making," Vincent said laughing.

After graduating, he hitchhiked to the lights of New York City with a copy of Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums, and some sweet Tokay wine, ending up freelancing for a number of publications, including The Wall Street Journal.

He also got his first taste of danger there--as a New York City cabbie.

But the idea for his book was born on one morning in September of 2001, when a loud noise caught his attention, and a friend called him to the roof of their Manhattan apartment.

"And while I was there on the roof, United Airlines flight 175 plowed into the World Trade Center," he said.

In the ensuing "War on Terrorism," that brought global attention back to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Vincent's curiosity about the conflict in the Middle East began to stir.

"I decided that if I was going to have an opinion about Iraq and the soldiers being sent there, I should go myself," he said. "And I wanted to go completely on my own, no attachment to any organization."

He self-funded his first trip there in the Fall of 2003, and began to learn his way around the country, but it wasn't until his second trip there that he began to understand the area and uncover the "soul of Iraq."

He spent much of his time between Oct. 2003 and March 2004, living in apartments and hotels and travelling throughout Iraq. He soon found himself fascinated by the culture and story he was witnessing, but said he can't find a word for the attraction.

"There's got to be a word for something that is tragic and thrilling at the same time," he said. "The thrilling part is the "I'm-a-journalist-here," thing, and the tragic part is what I was writing about."

He became close friends with an Iraqi woman named Nour (New-er), and she helped him make his way through the country, standing up for him at times and offering a safe haven and friendship when he found himself all alone in a foreign country growing increasingly unhappy with Americans.

He said he felt the rush many war correspondents describe when they talk about being in a conflicted area, but that he had to remember he was just an observer.

"You have a sense of adventure, but as a reporter you have to remember that it isn't about you. The tragedy and the drama that you're reporting on is not a backdrop for your own story," he said.

He kept his family updated through daily emails and frequent calls home, that his parents say they anxiously waited for every day.

"Of course we were worried about him very much, but with the daily emails, we knew he was well, so that more or less calmed us down," his mother said.

In March, he returned home to Manhattan, to make sense of what he had seen and find a way to write about it.

"By the end of the trip, I was an emotional basket-case, I was a wreck," he said. "I just needed quiet, because being in Manhattan can be kind of like putting your head in a garbage can and banging on the sides."

He eventually sat down to write and came up with what he said is a series of essaid on various topics, ranging from suicide bombers at outdoor festivals to explosives and carjackers along Iraqi highways.

"I wanted to write the kind of book I'd want to read on Iraq, less about the politics and more about the people of Iraq," he said. "I wrote the book for three reasons. One was the people who died in the 9/11 attacks. The book is dedicated to them. Another is for a woman I never met named Hadeel who died in a suicide bombing, and for Nour. These were the three I felt I needed to write the book for," he said.

He uses the word "seductive" for the pull he feels to return to the Middle East, but said the word doesn't describe the feeling.

"When people are getting their heads cut off, seductive is not the right word."

And while one adventure gave him the stories to write a book, the writing of that book has put him on another tiring adventure that he said he wasn't quite prepared for--the media tour. His parents don't expect him to visit them in Sunnyvale for several months, and they're still waiting for their autographed copy of his book. Right now, they're sharing a copy they bought online, a sale their son has diligently tracked since his book was first posted.

"I've been going on Amazon every ten minutes to see what place my book is in," he said. At press time, the book was number 28,622 on their list of book sales.