PAGE AFTER PAGE: Memoirs of a War-Torn Photographer

Here, British photojournalist Page offers woozy memoirs of his eccentric and adventurous life on the edges of society and in the midst of jungle warfare. Page seems unable to relate a tale without reference to being a ""Gemini born in the Year of the Monkey,"" reflecting on how ""the wheel turns yin and yang,"" or how the ""collective Kharma"" of his friends echoes in his mind. The characters who have peopled his existence always seem to be living in hand-sculpted adobe houses in New Mexico, writing Ph.D. theses on Bali, lost in clouds of opium while writing novels in Laos, or passing time with the Bhagwan. Meanwhile, readers are subjected to everything they never wanted to know about Page, including his first sexual gropings (""The moment my cherry disappeared was blurred out. . .the moment of penetration and orgasm never became a defined event. The second one did. I peed instead of climaxing'). Oh, yes. . .in his more active moments, Page did produce some of the most dramatic photographs of the Vietnam War, sustained and overcome devastating injuries (massive hemorrhages from shrapnel in the brain--""three times the accompanying nurse had to thump my heart back to the go mode""), and lived a very unconventional life in northern California, where ""the highlights of my time. . .are acid etched"" and where his diet ""consisted of beer, bourbon cocktails, fat pork, acid, smoke and coke."" A book that will make most readers happy that Page chose photography and not writing as a career.