I Married Vietnam

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Battle wounds, physical and emotional, and American society's ingratitude to Vietnam veterans shape this tale narrated by the wife of a former Airborne Ranger. Upon first meeting Jeremy Fisher in Chicago, after he has left the service, Samantha comes to share the ongoing, nightmarish legacy of his combat experience--bitterness, discrimination, remorse over killings, the myriad effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and his terrible memories. In the first three quarters of the novel, Samantha tells of Jeremy's childhood in rural Mississippi with his African American farm family, which also claims Cherokee ancestry. She describes his enlistment, training, two tours in the jungles of Vietnam and his return to postwar America. The edge of hero worship in the tone is appropriate to Samantha's narrative voice, which is that of a sympathetic, loving wife who, in her caring devotions, becomes an heroic figure herself. Through Frazier's gentle lyricism--even in scenes of gruesome violence--this first novel takes on fablelike qualities as well. Generally avoiding the maudlin potential of her story, which lacks immediacy, Frazier engages and often moves her readers. (Sept.)

Eloise Kinney

The narrator of this simply told but disturbing novel doesn't appear for nearly three-quarters of the book. Prior to that, we learn of the life of part Indian, part black Jeremy Freeman, who, though desperately poor and abandoned by his mother, becomes the first in his family to finish high school. An injury kills his chances of a football scholarship, so although he is just a sensitive youngster of 17, Jeremy joins the army and is sent to Vietnam. First-time author Frazier employs a stream-of-consciousness approach and uses what might be called linguistic sound effects in an effort to make the experience of the war real. When we do meet the narrator, a white woman named Samantha, the novel switches to Sam's no-holds-barred delineation of life with a Vietnam vet. Jeremy is unable to find work and unable to forget Vietnam. The last quarter of the book slams the VA, the post-Vietnam world, and the reader for being cruel and prejudiced but, mostly, for being unable to understand. Frazier makes Jeremy's plight easy to understand, and he also makes it easy to understand why the narrator's anger takes precedence over literary conventions.