Foxhole Fiction

BEACH RED—Peter Bowman—Random House ($2.50).

In Beach Red Sergeant Peter Bowman has established a literary beachhead. His brief (122-page) book, December Book-of-the-Month Club co-choice,* is the first novel by a combat author to describe the seizure of a Pacific island from the Japanese. It is the first time that such an action has been narrated in a medium which looks like unrhymed verse but which Author Bowman stoutly insists is sprung prose.† Prose or verse, it is the best form in which to tell Author Bowman's story—the thoughts that pass through a soldier's head during one hour of battle.

The action begins...