This first novel by a disabled Vietnam veteran compassionately examines a year in the life of a combat infantryman during that conflict. As the protagonist, 19-year-old Daniel Perdue, gains experience in the field, so does the reader, who comes to share Perdue's heightened awareness and sense of paranoia. In his handling of the volatile subjects of serious injury and death, Baker sidesteps the trap of sensationalism--in fact, one important character is killed off-stage as the reader follows Perdue's exploits on R&R. The narrative remains focused on the grunt's life of monotony mixed with fear, so powerfully evoked as to provide a better understanding of why many veterans have never entirely overcome the war's terrors. Undue repetition and diffuse (but authentically profane) dialogue too often disrupt the novel's rhythm, but an absorbing plot unfurled with gripping realism and an evocative sense of time and place will stir memories and convictions.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Most Vietnam War novels recount soldiers' rites of passage in war, death, and, more often than not, sex; most portray the schizophrenic oscillation between boring trivialities and knife-edged fear. This first novel is by contrast a quiet, apolitical account of the overseas tour of one common infantry soldier: thoughtful, compassionate, 18-year-old Daniel Purdue. He leads an ordinary life, and Baker's prose is also ordinary, lacking a sense of urgency and purpose. The initially stilted dialog improves (as the book does) in the second half, when Daniel gains self-confidence as a soldier and leader of his squad. With a few changes in the language, this book might have been suitable for a high school audience, but it will not captivate most adults.
- Pamela J. Peters, SUNY-SICAS Ctr., Oneonta
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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