New Literature: A River In May by Edward Wilson

We’ve all seen Apocalypse Now. We’ve read the fiction. Yet few films or books identify even a single Vietnamese by name. Three million Vietnamese were killed in the American war half the Jewish Holocaust.

What happens when a bunch of murderous gringos are let loose on a developing country? The country is Vietnam and the war has escalated into a technological bloodbath. Lyndon Johnson is in the White House and each night on the network news programmes Americans watch their soldiers returning in their thousands in plastic body bags.

In Vietnam, Lieutenant Lopez, a twenty-three-year-old American of Mexican origin, has volunteered for a tour of duty to escape not the cocoon of privilege his adoptive parents have wrapped him in, but a personal tragedy in which he is implicated. Lopez has been assigned to a remote border camp defended by a US Special Forces team and by Vietnamese irregulars. At first he regards the war as a personal penance, but is gradually forced out of his self-pity to become aware of the brainless brutality, bleak cynicism and injustice which swirl around him. Lopez starts to shed his layers of acquired identity and culture, and begins to go native.

In this powerful and profoundly unsettling first novel, Edward Wilson poses the question: how far will one individual go to right the wrongs of his country, before betraying his fellow soldiers and comrades? His answers, unexpected and shocking, will remain to haunt the reader long after the first reading. This is a Vietnam War novel with a difference, giving voice to the dispossessed.

Edward Wilson served in Vietnam as an officer in the 5th Special Forces, leading and advising indigenous troops the same type of operations which Special Forces are carrying out in Afghanistan today. His decorations include the US Broze Star and Army Commendation Medal for Valour. Soon after leaving the army, Wilson became a permanent expatriate. He formally lost his US nationality in 1986. Edward Wilson is now British and lives in Suffolk, where he teaches.

Published 15th March, £7.99, Paperback Fiction.