Synopsis
Alone in the Valley tells the story of 19-year-old Daniel Perdue and his year as a grunt, pursuing an elusive enemy through the steamy jungles of the Central Vietnamese Highlands. From the moment the boy soldier touches down until he is airborne and on his way home again, author Kenneth Waymon Baker makes sure the reader hears every sound, sees every sight, feels every emotion as his young hero faces the rigors of war and changed forever, a man who will return acquire the instincts of a warrior. Yet Perdue is never less than wholly sympathetic, surrounded by a cross-section of believable American types - all bound in the crucible of day-to-day combat.
Aside from the breathtaking realism and a prose style equal to the finest of war-time writing, the most valuable attribute of this remarkable book is its absence of cynicism. American soldiers are seen neither as heroes nor monsters, but as young men capable of extraordinary goodness and disastrous shortcomings; men who fear only cowardice and friendship.
Reviews
This first novel by a disabled Vietnam veteran compassionately examines a year in the life of a combat infantryman during that conflict. As the protagonist, 19-year-old Daniel Perdue, gains experience in the field, so does the reader, who comes to share Perdue's heightened awareness and sense of paranoia. In his handling of the volatile subjects of serious injury and death, Baker sidesteps the trap of sensationalism--in fact, one important character is killed off-stage as the reader follows Perdue's exploits on R&R. The narrative remains focused on the grunt's life of monotony mixed with fear, so powerfully evoked as to provide a better understanding of why many veterans have never entirely overcome the war's terrors. Undue repetition and diffuse (but authentically profane) dialogue too often disrupt the novel's rhythm, but an absorbing plot unfurled with gripping realism and an evocative sense of time and place will stir memories and convictions.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
First novel about an infantryman in Vietnam by a disabled Vietnam vet from Georgia. What immediately distinguishes this novel from others by writers like Larry Heinemann, Philip Caputo, or even Tim O'Brien is the touching naivet‚ of its young hero, Daniel Perdue. When we first meet him, he has just arrived in-country and is struggling manfully to comprehend what's going on. He's deeply offended by the constant, casual profanity of his fellow soldiers. When an artillery mission begins, he doesn't know it's friendly fire and drops to the ground in fear. As Baker puts it, Daniel ``was just one scared little boy trying his damndest not to look like a scared little boy.'' And while Daniel soon learns how to keep silent on patrol, how to identify punji sticks, and how to kill, he doesn't stop being a little boy, caught up in something monstrous, trying merely to survive. On the way through his tour, Daniel meets poor blacks, Hispanics, southern whites, and, of course, Vietnamese; Baker's way with dialogue is uncanny. No one here is cut out of cardboard, and there is no hatred in the book's tone, no swaggering, no politics. Daniel watches friend after friend die and is scarred and saddened forever; his loss of innocence is the fondest of tragedies. Yet there's a refreshing sweetness to Daniel, as in his long debate about whether to go with a prostitute. If he expects his future wife to be a virgin, which he does, then he should be, too. On the other hand, he might die before the sun sets, and he doesn't want to die pure. A well-written and unassuming debut novel whose very artlessness is its principle virtue. Though his voice is unique, Baker tells it exactly as it was. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most Vietnam War novels recount soldiers' rites of passage in war, death, and, more often than not, sex; most portray the schizophrenic oscillation between boring trivialities and knife-edged fear. This first novel is by contrast a quiet, apolitical account of the overseas tour of one common infantry soldier: thoughtful, compassionate, 18-year-old Daniel Purdue. He leads an ordinary life, and Baker's prose is also ordinary, lacking a sense of urgency and purpose. The initially stilted dialog improves (as the book does) in the second half, when Daniel gains self-confidence as a soldier and leader of his squad. With a few changes in the language, this book might have been suitable for a high school audience, but it will not captivate most adults.
- Pamela J. Peters, SUNY-SICAS Ctr., Oneonta
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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