HONOR AND DUTY

Lee's documentary-like second (after China Boy, 1991) concerns a West Point cadet who comes of age in the shadow of Vietnam at a university plagued by bigotry and cheating. Kai Ting, 17 in 1964, walks onto the West Point campus: ``After all the years of hope, I was here.'' Almost immediately, he and other cadets are ``psychically sandblasted'' all in caps: ``YOU ARE IN IT NOW, CREEP! YOU ARE IN THE PAIN PALACE, THE HURT HOOCH, THE OUCH POUCH, THE BRUISE BAG.'' In San Francisco, his stepmother is a witch: ``I am your mother. Not your stepmother. Give the picture of the Other Woman to your sister. Never, ever make a fist or raise your voice to me!'' His father (``Chinese fathers—for me, such a mystical, frightening term...'') was an officer with Chiang Kai-shek's forces, but West Point is important mostly because it is a way for Ting to certify his American identity. The book's narrative pattern is thus established: it shuttles between West Point and San Francisco. The Class of 1968, for all their military shine, are full of sloth, idealism, and lust; Ting's dreams are to ``study solids,'' ``bench-press three hundred pounds,'' get laid by someone who is not ``dating others,'' and to avoid getting caught between a collegiate cheating ring and the Honor Code. Finally, the whole West Point mess it too much for him, and he gets out in time for a teary-eyed reconciliation with his father. Duty gives way to individual choice, and the torch is passed to a new generation of Chinese-Americans: the story's a bit progammatic but rich in the sociology and folkways of two cultures. (First printing of 50,000)