The Vietnam reader : the definitive collection of American fiction and nonfiction on the war /

It is probably not possible to boil down the Vietnam conflict into a pocket-size distillation, but the editors of this thorough and well-chosen collection of reporting and writing have made a worthy attempt. From a vivid Time magazine account of the deaths of several U.S. advisersÄwhich packs a wallop in a mere three paragraphsÄon through exemplary work by David Halberstam, Peter Arnett and selections from the journals of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and Michael Herr, these two volumes attempt to let every side have its point of view. Soldiers, commanders, scribes and protesters all give their own versions of the hellish fighting and its ramifications. The collection also sheds light on how much the newsgathering business has changed since that time. The accounts hereÄexcept perhaps for those rooted in the burgeoning "new journalism"Äare based more in fact than in spin, making one wonder how today's reporters would chronicle those bygone events. Readers may gloss over some of the analysis and editorializing, much of which is rooted in its own time. But when Halberstam profiles John Paul Vann, a high-ranking officer who saw that the U.S. effort in Vietnam was doomed; when U.S. News & World Report offers in-the-thick-of-it commentary from pilot "Jerry" Shenk; and when Tom Wolfe chronicles Ken Kesey's appearance at Berkeley in his own inimitable fashion, then suddenly it's "Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, we've all been there," as Herr writes. This book will help readers understand better what it was like to live through that tumultuous period of American history. Maps, 32-page photo insert. BOMC main selection. (Oct.) FYI: The Vietnam Reader, edited by Stewart O'Nan and also out in October, from Holt, is a wide-ranging anthology of fiction and nonfiction, songs, photography and poetry about the war, little of which overlaps with the above two volumes. ($15.95 paper 800p ISBN 0-385-49118-2). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

O'Nan, himself the author of a well-received novel about the struggles of a Vietnam vet to readjust to civilian life (The Names of the Dead, 1996), has compiled a lengthy, varied, and somewhat idiosyncratic anthology of fiction and nonfiction by American writers about the war and its aftermath. The book was inspired, he notes in his preface, by his discovery that there was no wide-ranging compilation on the subject. O'Nan's selections, primarily excerpts from full-length works, include fiction by Tim O'Brien (Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried), James Webb (Fields of Fire), Larry Heinemann (Paco's Story), Stephen Wright (Meditations in Green), and John Del Vecchio (The 13th Valley), plus excerpts from memoirs by Robert Mason (Chickenhawk), Ronald J. Glasser (365 Days), and Michael Lee Lanning (The Only War We Had). O'Nan also includes the lyrics of a variety of period songs (``The Ballad of the Green Berets,'' ``Born in the USAŽ), critical summaries of films about the war, and some poetry. His adroit notes point out some of the most salient features of this literature (the relative neglect of the Vietnamese experience of war; the evolution of the American soldier protagonist from hero to cynical survivor; the persistent attempt to puzzle out what the war tells us about our society and government), and a glossary, bibliography, and chronology further help set the work in context. While the inclusion of more less-familiar writers would have been welcome, this is nonetheless a powerful, deeply revealing collection, and the best available introduction to a major body of modern American literature. (14 b&w photos, 1 map, not seen)