Books: War Is a Private Affair

KINGS GO FORTH (256 pp.)—Joe David Brown—Morrow ($3.50).

A suit of olive drab is popularly supposed to turn U.S. comrades in arms into brothers under the skin. That it frequently does nothing of the sort gives Novelist Joe David (Stars in My Crown) Brown the chance to mount a kind of two-front war novel in which the rasp of conflicting personalities can be heard above the whine of shells. The psychological combat in Kings Go Forth is sometimes emotionally blurred, though deeply felt, but the scenes of military combat flare across the pages as...