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4 THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG by Robert Timberg (Simon & Schuster) offers five quite different answers to the troubling question, "What is a hero?" His subjects are five decorated Vietnam vets, all Annapolis grads: John McCain, the Republican Senator from Arizona who was once a Navy pilot and then for 5 1/2 years a pow; James Webb, a battlefield hero who became Secretary of the Navy and then wrote a superb Vietnam novel, Fields of Fire; and three men who smeared themselves with Iran-contra, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter. The author does not decry heroes or the military, but a subtext is the importance of looking closely at the reputations we buy. North is merely the gaudiest example--cool and brave under fire but in civilian life a hot dog who, Timberg suggests, is perhaps unhinged in some surreal way that involves a mix of self-dramatization and stupidity.
5 THE LIARS' CLUB by Mary Karr (Viking). Poet Karr's memoir of her God-awful childhood in an East Texas oil town is marvelously entertaining, much in the manner of a train wreck recalled with guitar accompaniment. "My spankings were a kind of family sporting event," she writes. "Unless Mother managed to get me down in a corner, she would have to hold one of my wrists to keep me within flyswatter distance while she flailed in my direction. At best, she made contact about 10% of the time." Character takes firm hold in this wondering account of fistfights and flood, car crashes and shootings. It's not all funny, but it's a drop-dead reply to the question, "Ma, what was it like when you were a little girl?"
...AND THE WORST
MISS AMERICA by Howard Stern (Regan Books). The new best seller from America's top radio smut spieler and foremost exponent of penis envy is an ordeal even for those who liked Stern's first one: it is to Private Parts what Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter is to Nathaniel Hawthorne's. Stern puts his wittiest mots (e.g., "stupid smelly moron") in large type; he's found a way to shout in print. One photo, of the author with O.J. Simpson, reads getting away with murder!, which Howard has been doing on radio for years. Here, for crimes against humanity, the English language and his own repute as a low-level wit, the verdict is Guilty!