A stirringly personal account of the horrors of war.
A veteran blends history and autobiography in this debut memoir examining his military service during the Vietnam War.
Taylor grew up in Alabama and South Carolina as a “World War II baby,” born in the 1940s during a time when the United States became a central actor on the world stage. Nevertheless, he wasn’t particularly obsessed with geopolitics, and the growing unrest in Vietnam barely registered for him as he went to college; married his high school sweetheart, Linda; and found a rewarding job as a forester for a paper company. But the American involvement in Vietnam certainly grabbed his attention when in 1965, just before his 23rd birthday, he received a notice from the local draft board summoning him for a physical examination to assess his fitness for military service. He couldn’t discover a palatable way to avoid the inevitable draft notice and so decided to volunteer. After some training, he found himself sent to Vietnam as an infantryman; combat was “the only job for which I had been trained.” The author describes, in riveting, unflinching terms, the grim reality of war and a soldier’s confrontation with death. He was wounded by a land mine explosion, an injury that earned him both a Purple Heart and the right to return to the United States. Taylor’s remembrance is linearly organized, and he candidly discusses his childhood and adolescence, including his puberty years marked by a “strong sexual appetite but very little sexual knowledge.” His account also eclectically braids the political and the personal, looking back at his life through the lens of world history—at one point, he compares the “prepubescent periods” he shared with South Vietnam. While he intelligently reflects on the U.S.’s foreign policy failures and its misplaced obsession with the march of Communism, his most trenchant and moving reflections are subjective. At one point, Taylor recounts the impact of hearing a soldier proselytize: “Avoiding the truth that I might die in Vietnam, I always thought I would make it home all in one piece and on this side of the dirt. Our ‘street preacher’ unnerved the troops by reminding them they might not live to see another day.”
A stirringly personal account of the horrors of war.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73265-390-0
Page Count: 238
Publisher: FE Taylor Group, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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