Apparently this is a classic, at least for military types. Which is probably why I didn't know about it. It was one of those "interesting covers" books in the library in the Staff Favorites area. I read the jacket flap and it sounded fascinating.
The whole book read like a nonfiction memoir, especially because the author gave his main character his name and occupation (writer). I checked the back of the title page many times and it states directly that it is fiction. It seems to be based on the author's memory, however. You can read more information here.
This book is a collection of related short stories, with common themes throughout. It follows a platoon in Vietnam and explores their changing reactions to war, violence, death and "normalcy".
The author writes with a blunt candor yet in a strange beautifully poetic way. This was one of my favorite passages:
"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die. In different ways, it happened to all of them. Afterward when the firing ended, they would blink and peek up. They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it...as if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old logic--absolute silence, then the wind, then sunlight, then voices. It was the burden of being alive." (p. 19).
If you are looking for reading material out of your ordinary genres, pick this one up.
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