While Dennis Johnson's novel about Vietnam is my least favorite of his works that I've read so far (though that's just Jesus' Son and Already Dead) it was still compellingly written and kinda interesting. Halfway through I realized that while I've seen many films about Vietnam, I can't recall reading another novel set there. The benefits of dealing with the subject in a novel are obvious -- there are lots more unrelated characters here, spread out over a much longer time span, and hence encompassing more dimensions of the sprawling mess that gave birth to the Boomers. As one might expect though, the message ends up being rather similar to everything else we've heard about Vietnam. That war destroyed the American soul in a unique way. Every trip to Vietnam was a trip into the heart of darkness.
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