SHOT IN THE CATHEDRAL

Shot In The Cathedral ($18.95; Sept. 1, 1996; 220 pp.; 1-55885- 164-X): A skillful balance between journalistic reportage and a subjective focus on the lives of ordinary people afflicted by political upheaval distinguishes this otherwise familiar (and somewhat melodramatic) picture of El Salvador under siege in the late 1970s. The suspension of civil rights by a right-wing military regime and the persecution of a populist archbishop are crucial elements in a vivid and engrossing sequence of events whose deeply involved observer—an average man who unaccountably becomes both newspaper reporter and hero—makes powerfully real for us the human dimensions of war's phlegmatic impersonality.