Soldier's Joy

Someone gave me this book 14 years ago, and I just got around to reading it because there was nothing else on my bookshelf that I hadn't read. I'm glad I picked it up! The book deals with music and violence and family, and the prose itself is musical at times. There is one chapter devoted to a relatively minor character's death that is heartbreakingly beautiful. And no, not a "typical" Vietnam story at all. I, an avid Jane Austin fan, loved it.

A great book that sneaks up on you over time. The relatively slow beginning is a wonderful evocation of the rural south and of the healing power of music and nature. However, violence is not that easy to tame. As someone who grew up after the Vietnam War (born 1969), I've often wondered why so many veterans ended up training in some form of martial arts. This book goes a long way towards explaining that need. The violence from the war bleeds through the lives of the vets in this novel as both a liberating and a destructive force; they can't shake it and they aren't sure if they really want to.

Laidlaw and Redmon were raised together in the Tennessee hills on the horse farm owned by Laidlaw's father; the black Redmon family living in one of the out-buildings and Redmon, Sr. working for Laidlaw, Sr. The boys are friends, a friendship complicated less by their different races than by young Redmon's perception that his father prefers Laidlaw to him. The boys, as boys will, grow to manhood, enter the army and are shipped to fight in Vietnam, where terrible things happen. They return, independent of each other, and spend much time alone-Laidlaw living in the Redmon's old home (Laidlaw's father died when the main house burned down) and Redmon in prison as the fall-guy in a real estate scam. Laidlaw had used his solitary year, surrounded by nothing more than a motley of farm animals, a stray dog, and a runaway peacock, to become proficient enough with a banjo that he can attract a following playing with a blue-grass band. Redmon seeks him out at a performance and the friendship is renewed.In "Soldier's Joy", Madison Smartt Bell has much to say about tragedy, loss, solitude, betrayal, fathers and sons and the psychological devastation that can be wrought upon young men who have spent a year up to their elbows in gore. This is a book rich in both description and nuance. The Tennessee countryside is vivid and the musical imagery-and there is a lot of it-doesn't come across as forced or cloying but instead reads like a soundtrack. The writing is so fine, so "writerly" that it is easy to overlook the fact that the plot is almost an afterthought and is full of holes. This is not to say that Mr. Bell can't tell a story-he can. There are several scenes of firefights that are gripping and exciting and rank with the best of the breed. However, the basic plot (introduced well into the novel) about the Klan being somehow offended by the interracial friendship of Laidlaw and Redmon and by the interracial following of a local evangelist and trying to end both by violence, is thin. There are also two characters-Laidlaw's musician girlfriend and the ex-Green Beret leader of the Klan-who deserved better development. These are quibbles. "Soldier's Joy" is post-Vietnam fiction that is well worth reading.

This is a wonderful book, the kind that you start to read slower when you get close to the end because you don't want to say goodbye to the characters. the story itself is engaging and interesting, but the subtly crafted dialog, revealing so much about the characters so naturally is what astonished me. This is a book that celebrates the extraordinary in ordinary people, and made me feel better about humanity (be warned, I don't think you'd call it a 'feel good' book though!).I loved this book, and will be seeking out more by the author.