Close Quarters: A Novel [Paperback]

From the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of the Vietnam conflict--Philip Caputo, Tim O’Brien, and Gustav Hasford.In the stripped-down, unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells the story of his war. Straight from high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, he enters a world of mud and heat, blood and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom that awaits every soldier. In the tradition ofNaked and the DeadandThe Thin Red Line,Close Quartersis the harrowing story of how a decent kid from Chicago endures an extraordinary trial-- and returns profoundly altered to a world on the threshold of change.

An unremittingly honest look into the black pit of war. . . . Larry Heinemann's voice is clear and true. —The New York Times

The best work of fiction to come out of the Vietnam War. —The Houston Chronicle

Close Quarterscan stand with the finest Vietnam writing, fact or fiction. —Chicago Tribune

“The most ambitious and substantial novel about the war in Vietnam . . . . the first one that people can read 75 years from now and gain an insight into how the war was truly fought . . . following the talk of the soldiers, you feel more like an eavesdropper than a reader.” —Kansas City Star

Larry Heinemann’s novelPaco’s Storywon the National Book Award in 1987. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.UGLYDEADLYMUSICI stood stiffly with my feet well apart, parade-rest fashion, at the break in the barbed-wire fence between the officers' country tents and the battalion motor pool. My feet and legs itched with sweat. My shirt clung to my back. My shaving cuts burned. I watched, astonished, as the battalion Reconnaissance Platoon, thirty-some men and ten boxy squat-looking armored perslc.