Soldier's Joy
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Vietnam vet returns to rural Tennessee in this acclaimed novel from the National Book Award–nominated author of Save Me, Joe Louis.
After the horrors of Vietnam, Thomas Laidlaw returns to his home in rural Tennessee where he spends his days raising sheep and growing vegetables. At night he likes to roam the quiet countryside and practice his banjo, revelling in the roots music he finds so grounding. Over time, he resumes his friendship with Rodney Redmon, a fellow vet and childhood friend scarred not only by the wages of war, but also by the deep wounds of racism.
As the two friends piece together a new life as civilians, they also piece together a band with the addition of a fiddler. Through a masterful accumulation of details, Bell brings his story to a fever pitch, concluding in “an unexpected, if powerful, finale” (Publishers Weekly). “This important, insightful novel” (Library Journal) proves once again that “every sentence [Bell] writes is a joy. His power is exhilarating” (The New Yorker).
“Bell’s impressive talents as a writer, which include endowing settings with the significance of character, and a patient, compassionate probing of injured souls, are on full display.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bell's impressive talents as a writer, which include endowing settings (here the landscape of rural Tennessee) with the significance of character, and a patient, compassionate probing of injured souls, are on full display in this uneven but intriguing story of a young Vietnam veteran's slow, brave resumption of civilian life. Thomas Laidlaw lives alone on his family land; he raises sheep, grows hay and vegetables, roams the countryside at night and practices his banjo. (The title is the name of a song as well as reference to a questionable legacy of the Vietnam war; as in his Zero db and Other Stories , the author's absorption with music enriches his prose). Gradually Laidlaw reestablishes his friendship with Rodney Redmon, a black man he'd grown up with and with whom he'd spent time in Vietnam. Also gradually--the operative word for most of the book, where details accumulate with the authority of a natural process--Laidlaw puts together a band, including the fiddler Adrienne, whose lover he becomes, and they begin to play at local bars. At the end, when Laidlaw, Redmon and a third reclusive vet are involved in a shoot-out with a cadre of Klansmen who attack a popular evangelist, the story disintegrates in an unexpected, if powerful, finale. For all its lack of balance, this novel's rewards far outweigh its flaws.
