Overview:
If one were compiling a list of great novels dealing with the Viet Nam War, I believe that John M. Del Vecchio's harsh and gripping novel of infantry combat, The 13th Valley, would have a high place on that list. It is one of those novels that seems so realistic, both in its presentation of character and in the action (which literally wears the reader down just as it does the soldiers who are at the heart of the story).
Unlike the view of Viet Nam taken in such books as Stone's Dog Soldiers and the movie "Apocalypse Now", this story doesn't dwell on the fringe craziness of drugs, secret missions or exaggerated characters for the sake of social commentary. It focuses on the lives of grunts in the bush and how they are transformed by the harsh reality of repeatedly facing and delivering death as their daily job. The universal questions don't have to be asked. They are implicit in the life or death struggle that Del Vecchio recounts so well. This is a stunning book; harsh, gritty, realistic, touching and disturbing.
"There have been a number of excellent books about Vietnam. . .but none has managed to communicate in such detail the day-to-day pain, discomfort, frustration and exhilaration of the American military experience in Vietnam." --Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review
"The novel about the Vietnam War. . .Del Vecchio has constructed a classic war novel, a complex and frightening book, that gets it right." --Chicago Sun Times
"An important and distinctly American book." --William Plummer, Newsweek
"There have been a number of excellent books about Vietnam...but none has managed to communicate in such detail the day-to-day pain, discomfort, frustration and exhilaration of the American military experience in Vietnam." --Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review
"The novel about the Vietnam War...Del Vecchio has constructed a classic war novel, a complex and frightening book, that gets it right." --Chicago Sun-Times
"An important and distinctly American book." --William Plummer, Newsweek
"The first Vietnam combat novel to demand--and deserve--comparison with Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead." --Philadelphia Enquirer
"The 13th Valley written with straightforward, authoritative, unadorned prose and merciless intelligence is not just the best Vietnam War novel to date, but the smartest." --C.D.B. Bryan, author of Friendly Fire
"The 13th Valley is dynamite! This is the most sensuously honest interpretation of the Vietnam experience I've ever read." --Al Santoli, author of Everything We Had
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!
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