GARDENS OF STONE

by Nicholas Proffitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 1983

The disillusionment with career-Army life during the Vietnam era--in a solid, authentic first novel that's only slightly marred by its predictability and sentimentality. Smart, handsome young PFC Jack Willow, son of a retired NCO career-Army man, wants to be an infantryman in Vietnam; but his first mid-1960s assignment is to the ""Old Guard,"" the ceremonial unit at Fort Myer responsible for--among other things--Arlington National Cemetery funerals. (Says Sergeant Major ""Goody"" Nelson: ""We are the nation's toy soldiers. . . the jesters at the court of Mars, god of war. Doo-dah, doo-dah."") And Jack's mentor at Fort Myer will be his father's old friend Sergeant First Class Clell Hazard, 45, a Gary Cooper-ish sort from Montana who has sacrificed Family for the Army--having been divorced by his fed-up wife. Hazard, however, is firmly negative about the escalating, mismanaged war in Vietnam; he's worried about the irreparable damage that such a war will inflict on the Army's image; he tries to teach Jack about the realities of guerrilla fighting; and he timidly begins a warm, sexy affair with neighbor/newswoman Samantha--who is surprised to find that Hazard is such a non-Neanderthal. . . yet remains leery of his Army-centered mentality. Then Jack's father dies of a heart attack back home: the funeral arrangements (scorned by Jack's unstable mother, who hates the Army) are intertwined with flashbacks to Jack's Army-brat adolescence, his doomed love for colonel's daughter Rachel--who forced him to choose between her and the Army. And the novel's second half largely alternates between Hazard (his much-tested romance with Samantha, his attempts to enlighten the Army about Vietnam tactics) and Jack, who reunites with Rachel but will ultimately find disillusionment and death in Vietnam--a death that finally snaps Hazard's umbilical tie to the Army. First-novelist Proffitt, a Newsweek veteran, tries a bit too hard for literary effects here: flashbacks, flash-forwards (to Jack in Vietnam), some artsy-craftsy lapses in the generally vigorous prose. His themes, too, are a little belabored: the cemetery metaphor, the Vietnam debates--with lots of dialogue like, ""Where's the honor anymore, Clell? Where did the fuckin' honor go?"" But the evocation of the Old Guard barracks/ceremonial life is raunchily, vividly convincing; the people are likable, if somewhat artificial. And Proffitt, whose background is similar to Jack's, offers an unusually well-balanced view of Army life--with the old-fashioned virtues given as much weight as the evils so widely mused upon in recent years.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Carroll & Graf (260 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10001)

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION