Fatal Light

This book, the 20th anniversary edition of Fatal Light by Richard Currey, is an account of a transition from boyhood to war and then home again. Yet, although many books about war follow similar paths, Currey declines to focus on narrative. Rather, he evokes emotions and feelings in tiny snapshots of one participant's life during the Vietnam War. The result is a dream-like book, where episodes of the narrator's boyhood, his time on the battlefield, on leave in Saigon and on his first few days back home are told in the same style as his recounting of malarial delirium. If the result is a portrait of one man's experience of the war, Currey wields his brush sparingly, but each line is precisely placed. Less concerned with narrative than with tone, Currey sometimes allows the reader to be confused. The reader may have some difficulty knowing which tales might be referred to later on, and which will merely fade away. Yet, I can't help but consider this a stylistic device, rather than a flaw. The disjointed narrative conveys the confusion the narrator feels throughout his time in the war and immediately after. The prose is beautiful, even if the subject is ugly. I highly recommend this book.

Simply the best book on the Vietnam War experience i have ever read. i was unable to put it down, even when i was so angry i wanted to throw it across the room, or when i was crying my eyes out. this book touched me in a way none other has. simply a must-read.

Richard Currey's novel The Fatal Light gives an incredibly realistic view of the Vietnam War. Although gut-wrenching at times, the novel is quite intriguing and interesting.

Richard Currey's Fatal Light is captivating and enlightening. I could not stop reading the book once I started. I found myself drawn into the life and experiences of the narrator--most likely based on the author's experiences as a marine in Vietnam. Currey writes his impressions personally and vividly. His stream of consciousness starts with life as a boy, and alternates impressions and experiences in the warring Vietnam jungle with the more peaceful times with the girl he left behind. Some readers may, at first, find the time period switches uncomfortable. However, if the reader allows him/herself to get into the mind-set of this young soldier, it will be clear as to why he presents his story this way. Life in this war was anything but straightforward. The time period switches show us how the narrator coped. He had to remember home and better times in order to have the energy and desire to stay alive in the war. Richard Currey shows us through the eyes of his narrator how it feels to go from mid-America small-town life as an adolescent to the savagery of war and back. The narrator changes in the process, and so do we, as we vicariously experience and come through the reality and horror of war--but also, it seems, with almost first-hand knowledge.

It's easy to see why this book won the Hemingway award, with it's swift, clean storyline that lays out the atrocities and realities of war before the reader like a bloody knee the eight year old shows his friends. It is one man's experience of the war, one man who returned like all the others, different. A must read for those who look for reality in literature. It doesn't get any grittier than this.