Books: Taps

VIET JOURNAL

by JAMES JONES

257 pages. Delacorte. $7.95.

When America finally came home from Viet Nam, journalists and their editors were faced with a new problem:How to report back that the light at the end of the tunnel had turned out to be a 40-watt bulb? The editors at the New York Times Magazine had a thought. Anxious for a piece on "the sights, the sounds, the smells of Viet Nam—after the end," they chose Novelist James Jones. Viet Journal, an extensive outgrowth of the trip that produced the magazine article, is pitched perfectly for the mood of...

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