What to Read Next: The Vietnam War in Fiction

Featuring Marlantes, O'Brien, Hannah, and Nguyen

From Hawk’s Ridge in Duluth, MN

Happy Friday, readers!

It’s been a while since the last “What to Read Next” newsletter. I’ve definitely appreciated the space to work on my book.

Amidst the business of this season of life, I’ve still found time, as always, for some excellent reading. Today, I’m going to share a few recommendations for Vietnam War fiction, including one title that’s nearly a lock for ending up in my year-end favorites list.

As always, I’d love to hear what you’re reading and enjoying!

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

I’ll cut to the chase for this one: Matterhorn is the best war novel I’ve read, period. Written over the course of decades, Marlantes, a Vietnam vet himself, quite obviously poured his blood, sweat, and tears into this story.

Bravo Company is full of young, inexperienced Marines, including Lieutenant Mellas. Their task is to take a hill, called Matterhorn, and then take it again after they lose it. The men don’t really understand the “why” of their mission — a recurring theme in Vietnam — but they do it anyway. As you can imagine, the fighting takes a deep tool on the company, physically and mentally.

Much like the war itself, there’s not a lot of forward progress in the novel. There are times where it reads like Catch-22 in its bureaucratic nightmare and times where it reads like Band of Brothers in its depiction of martial brotherhood. In being able to combine those themes, Matterhorn stands a cut above. It’s over 650 pages long, but it’s a masterpiece.

The Sympathizer by Nguyen

Between a recent sequel and a television adaptation, The Sympathizer has gotten a lot of attention once again. Not that it was lacking: this novel won numerous accolades when it was published in 2015, including the Pulitzer.

The story starts at end of the Vietnam War, or at least the end of U.S. involvement in the war. Our unnamed narrator is a double agent, posing as a South Vietnamese officer but acting in truth as a spy for North Vietnam. He tells us at the beginning that his sympathies lie with both parties — he is a man of two faces. We follow him during his escape to the U.S. and subsequent spycraft hijinks, both serious and not-so-serious.

It’s a strange novel at times (including one of the most weirdly unforgettable scenes I’ve ever read), but covers a lot of ground in terms of memory, legacy, picking sides, and what “truth” really means.

I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I enjoyed The Sympathizer overall. It felt a bit self-serious at times, but I didn’t struggle to pick it up and keep reading. If you enjoy unique literary fiction, give it a shot.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

I’ve read a few Kristin Hannah books and don’t quite know why I keep reading her. I’m probably making some enemies here, but she consistently writes a killer first half and then goes totally off the rails in the second half with wild, unnecessary plot twists.

The first half of The Women is an excellent portrayal of a Vietnam nurse’s baptism by fire in war. It’s visceral and powerful; gruesome at times, but so human. This part merited 4.5 stars.

But then, about halfway through, protagonist Frankie gets back home. There’s some good stuff about PTSD and veteran women’s rights, but I mostly wished that Hannah had just given the entire book to the wartime experience. The romantic plot twists were completely unnecessary and unbelievable. Second half was just 2 stars.

What to make of a book that’s a tale of two halves? I’m almost more annoyed with it because it had such promise . . . 2.5 stars overall.

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien is best known for his collection The Things They Carried, which is more directly tied to his Vietnam experience. In the Lake of the Woods, a thriller set in northern Minnesota, takes more of a sideways approach to the war.

John Wade has just lost a senate election. He heads up to a remote cabin on the border of Minnesota and Canada to decompress. One morning, though, he wakes up to find his wife Kathy has gone missing.

As the husband always is, for good reason, John was declared a suspect from the get-go. He didn’t quite respond the right way; he didn’t immediately go out looking for her; he wasn’t wracked by grief at the possibility of her death.

Using flashbacks to John’s time in Vietnam, O’Brien weaves an atmospheric tale that doesn’t offer tidy conclusions or black and white portraits of our main characters. While the primary plot is indeed the mystery of the missing wife, there’s a lot to be mined about the complexity of PTSD and how war experience fundamentally alters a life.

In the Lake of the Woods was a slow burn on the story level, which isn’t for everyone when it comes to thrillers, but I really enjoyed it overall.

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Thanks so much for reading! Be good to each other.

-Jeremy