Synopses & Reviews
The Vietnam War never goes away. It is so present in our lives and culture that most adult Americans are amazed to discover that the year 2000 marks the 25th anniversary of our withdrawal from Saigon. In this rich and varied collection of short stories, former Green Beret Lee Barnes deals with the war itself and with its aftermath, but his stories focus more on the human aspects of men in armed conflict and families at home than on the violent drama or political aspects of that war.
Barnes gives us a wonderful group of memorable characters: Berkeley-educated North Vietnamese Colonel Tram Van Nim, who proposes a baseball game with the enemy in "A Lovely Day in the A Shau Valley," the gentle, instinctive giant Harvey Walters in the haunting "Stonehands and the Tigress." Calvin Widerly, a father seeking his missing son, locates Mai, now an adult, who as a small child once offered a young solider kindness in the excruciating "The Cat in the Cage." Worldly, recently jilted Las Vegan Rowe is fascinated by the uncanny skills of Paez, the "Tunnel Rat" in Barnes's remarkable novella. And Bruce, who, in those years, had blackmailed his friend "Lum" into a wildly improbable mission, resurfaces in the darkly comic "Gunning for Ho." These characters and many more show us not only the many faces of war, but also the subtleties and small tragedies of men dealing with men and with women.
Review
"Though Barnes's work does not finally outshine previous Vietnam-based fiction, his writing is clean-cut and vibrant, and his stories ring true." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Barnes' stories have a strong sense of a dark, dreamlike state where the strange and bizarre go head to head with the very real terror of war....Just when you thought you had heard the last of the Vietnam War, another voice demands to be heard." Booklist
Review
"'It's as hard to find a hero as it is to pretend there's no truth,' the narrator of one of these fine tales muses, but even that isn't completely true. Like Tim O'Brien and Larry Heinemann, in Gunning for Ho, H. Lee Barnes takes the reader beyond the now-familiar surface of Vietnam stories and manages to find truth in the simple heroism of enduring." Stewart O'Nan, editor of The Vietnam Reader
Table of Contents
A lovely day in the A Shau Valley -- Stonehands and the tigress -- The cat in the cage -- A return -- Plateau lands -- Tunnel rat -- Gunning for Ho.