Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wolff, Tobias - Richard Eder (review date 16 October 1994)

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Richard Eder (review date 16 October 1994)

SOURCE: Eder, Richard. “Where the Chariots were Engulfed: Near-misses in the Vietnam War.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (16 October 1994): 3, 10.

[In the following review, Eder compliments Wolff's prose in In Pharaoh's Army, comparing it to other prominent literature about the Vietnam War.]

Imagine the button; the notorious and apocryphal button—it is a set of keys, I believe—that was available through the Cold War, and since, for unleashing Armageddon. Would it be black plastic like a doorbell buzzer? Or brushed steel like the on-off in an expensive sound system? Might it squeak when pressed? Would it bear the faint sheen of mayonnaise from a sandwich lunch at the desk—the President touching it lightly while thinking large and lonely thoughts?

It is the button or its equivalent that Tobias Wolff considers in these 13 pieces from the Vietnam War [in In Pharaoh's...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Valentine Cunningham (review date 14 March 1975)
   2. Bruce Allen (review date spring 1982)
   3. Richard Orodenker and Welch D. Everman (review date June 1982)
   4. Dean Flower (review date summer 1982)
   5. Bruce Allen (review date 7 June 1985)
   6. Thomas DePietro (review date autumn 1986)
   7. Linda Taylor (review date 6-12 November 1987)
   8. Richard Eder (review date 8 January 1989)
   9. Jeff Danziger (review date 16 February 1989)
   10. Geoff Dyer (review date 28 April 1989)
   11. John Clute (review date 12-18 May 1989)
   12. John Rechy (review date 5 November 1989)
   13. Peter J. Bailey (essay date summer 1991)
   14. John F. Desmond (essay date 14 May 1994)
   15. Richard Eder (review date 16 October 1994)
   16. Tobias Wolff and Nicholas A. Basbanes (interview date 24 October 1994)
   17. James Hannah (essay date 21 November 1994)
   18. Amanda Hopkinson (review date 9 December 1994)
   19. Michael Wood (review date 23 December 1994)
   20. Michael O. Garvey (review date 19 May 1995)
   21. Pat C. Hoy II (review date summer 1995)
   22. Jay Rogoff (review date summer 1996)
   23. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   24. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   25. Erin McGraw (review date summer 1997)
   26. Tobias Wolff and Elizabeth Glass (interview date July 1997)
   27. Daniel D. Challener (essay date 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright