Starlight
A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
In the depths of Vietnam's jungles, a radioman and a haunted sniper try to survive
Jackson has three hundred days left in Vietnam, and he plans to spend them behind a desk, working the radio for a major in a godforsaken firebase not far from the Laos border. But one day, the reality of war visits Jackson in the form of Tom Light, a sniper whose scope is said to have the power to raise the dead. Where Light goes, ambushes follow, and so he has been cursed to wander the jungle alone, his skin growing pale, his boots replaced with sandals.
Tom Light is a dangerous man to know, a spooky lost soldier who survives in spite of himself. Jackson wants to learn his secret. Hoping the master sniper can keep him safe, Jackson ventures out with Light. In the jungle they will encounter perils—some real and some hallucinatory. Can the strange sniper's all-powerful starlight scope will them to stay alive?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Many good Vietnam war novels fall into two classes: the highly realistic narrative of men in combat and the surrealistic or even supernatural approach to this most surrealistic of wars. This ambitious and exciting first novel can be placed into the latter category, although with some very chilling moments of realism as well. Tom Light is a legend in Vietnam, a loner who goes into the bush to snipe at the enemy with his rifle and starlight viewfinder. Feared by American troops as a harbinger of doom, Light is unwelcome at any firebase or camp. But one frightened young soldier named Jackson strikes a pact with Light, befriending him in return for a guarantee of safety, which he believes Light, with his mystical viewfinder, can provide. Plunging from absurd to hallucinatory, this is a consistently electrifying novel and a powerful debut.
