SOURCE: Stewart, Matthew C. “Realism, Verisimilitude, and the Depiction of Vietnam Veterans in In Country.” In Fourteen Landing Zones: Approaches to Vietnam War Literature, edited by Philip K. Jason, pp. 166–79. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.

[In the following essay, Stewart discusses what he feels to be the merits and flaws in the depictions of Vietnam veterans in the novel In Country.]

Bobbie Ann Mason's 1985 novel In Country is the story of teenager Sam Hughes's remarkable desire to come to terms with the Vietnam War and of her maternal uncle Emmett Smith's equally remarkable inability to do the same. Sam's desire to know about Vietnam and to understand its consequences is striking because of her age and the intensity of her feelings. A war which ended when she was but a child is at the center of her life; as the narrator states: “She was feeling the delayed stress of the Vietnam War. It was her inheritance” (89). Sam has only just graduated from high school in the small, rural Kentucky town of Hopewell, but instead of concentrating seriously on college plans, summer work, or her future she is preoccupied with thoughts of her father, who was killed in Vietnam prior to Sam's first birthday without ever having seen her. She also finds herself attracted to Emmett's friend Tom, a Vietnam veteran who returned from the war sexually dysfunctional. Finally, she is beset with worries for her troubled uncle, whose health problems and difficulties integrating into the ordinary stream of Hopewell life Sam rightly attributes to his time as a soldier in Vietnam.

Since the subject of In Country is the aftereffects of Vietnam on individuals and communities, Emmett's story becomes inseparable from Sam's and is coequal in importance. He and his circle of friends form a microcosm of Vietnam veterans' feelings, complaints, and problems regarding reintegration into civilian society, and the symptoms and behavioral signs typical of these problems pervade the text. The novel is so complete in this regard that it seems as if Mason availed herself of the many psychological and sociological studies of Vietnam veterans and then managed to embody all that she learned in this one small group of fictional Kentucky veterans. This thorough depiction of the aftereffects of the Vietnam War on one family in particular and on one small Kentucky town resonates for all Americans who, like Sam, struggle to reckon the price and the lessons of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. As a social document In Country is worthy of attention because of its comprehensive representation of troubled Vietnam veterans; as a novel it is praiseworthy for its unforced, suggestively condensed manner of depiction and its authenticity, although its ending sadly runs counter to these qualities. Indeed in part 3, the novel's final part, Mason seems to capitulate to wish-fulfillment and abandons the scrupulous verisimilitude which has marked her treatment of veterans until then.

Narrated in a terse, affectless manner, In Country is highly dependent upon the reader's powers of inference. Mason's narrator, while grammatically clear and simple, shows frequently and tells seldom. Because the narrative is tightly bound to Sam's point of view, her problems and puzzlements are occasionally given direct narratorial exploration. On the other hand, veterans' problems are always depicted, never analyzed or treated in narratorial discourse. In other respects, the novel's aesthetics are those of traditional realism with its concentration on surface details and mundane events. In Country presents everyday life as it is lived by a readily recognizable segment of the population, in this case a version of 1984 small-town America, complete with Pepsi, Bruce Springsteen, M*A*S*H reruns, and the general milieu of shopping-mall culture. In Country shuns the formalistic pyrotechnics of much modernist and postmodernist fiction, preferring to concentrate on old-fashioned storytelling, which Mason does in a style marked by allusiveness and a minimalistic spareness. Except for the obvious and uncomplicated framing device of the first and third parts, the plot is entirely chronological and is at all times easy to follow. The relationship between events is apparent and overt. In sum, to borrow Keith Opdahl's description of realism, the reader meets “with very little resistance, [and feels] the familiar patterns of actual experience” (4).

No doubt our society could well benefit from a literary work that enables it to come to terms with the Vietnam War, and presumably this is the project of In Country. For her title Mason has chosen a term used by soldiers to refer to time spent in active service in Southeast Asia. As the story develops we see the multiple levels of meaning and reference which this term accrues, and we come to realize that it is not only the fictitious characters of Hopewell who are still in country but to a greater or lesser extent each one of us. In content and effect, then, as well as in style the bulk of In Country fits Charles Newman's description of contemporary realism:

The … energizing notion of this Neo-Realism is that there is new information which is not made redundant by other media, information which does not have to be “made up,” but rather is shaped or aimed, because such substantive experience has been repressed, neglected or distorted. More importantly, this notion of literature often presupposes a receptive audience which has a special need for this information, a collective unconscious which in fact awaits collection.

(174)

The existence of an audience in need of this novel is unquestionable, and for this reason the book's eventual lapses in verisimilitude and its culminating shift in style are lamentable on both an artistic and a social level, as we shall see.

Despite Emmett's status as a major character and despite the fact that veterans' problems are pervasive and should be apparent, his problems are never discussed at any length by the book's reviewers. And despite the fact that the novel's basic raison d'être is to examine the Vietnam War's legacy, they have scarcely mentioned the other troubled veterans who inhabit the novel. This inattention may be partially accounted for by the tendency to identify with a narrative point of view, critically to make this Sam's story because most of it is seen through her eyes. It is also possible that a lack of knowledge about troubled Vietnam veterans has prevented even well-informed, highly literate readers from giving this central topic its due attention.¹ Any such ignorance, to whatever extent it exists, is all the more troublesome precisely because Mason's allusive, show-don't-tell method depends upon a readership able to recognize her portraits of troubled veterans.²

Although it would be wrong to pretend that we can analyze fictional characters psychologically or sociologically as if they were real people, critical interpretation based on specialized knowledge of Vietnam veterans is particularly useful for In Country. This type of critical examination will help shed light on previously underexamined aspects of the novel and is called for by Mason's method, which in its reliance on uncommented-upon depiction entrusts much to the reader's powers of inference. By informing ourselves we may more thoroughly understand Emmett's odd behavior and better recognize the problems exhibited by various of Hopewell's Vietnam veterans. Most important, we are consequently able to judge the novel's level of verisimilitude and its relative success or failure as a piece of serious realism. Knowledge gained from sociological and psychological studies of Vietnam veterans is, then, not only a valid hermeneutic tool but also an indispensable one for the exegesis and evaluation of In Country. As Ernest Bramstedt has put the matter, “Only a person who has a knowledge of … a society from other sources than purely literary ones is able to find out if, and how far, certain social types and their behavior are reproduced in the novel in an adequate or inadequate manner. What is pure literary fancy, what realistic observation, and what only an expression of the desires of the author must be separated in each case in a subtle manner” (4). The differentiation of literary fancy and authorial desires from realistic observation is of primary importance in the present critique of In Country.

Any discussion of troubled veterans in In Country should begin with a consideration of post-traumatic stress disorder, the primary operative term governing the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of Vietnam veterans suffering from the psychic repercussions of their war experiences in southeast Asia. We can recognize a remarkable number of common manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder in Emmett and his friends.³ Indeed, the number is large enough to make a full discussion of each maladaptive behavior prohibitive here, but a fairly inclusive list can be made. Emmett has difficulty sleeping and has recurrent troubling dreams; he also clearly suffers from severe psychic numbing. Emmett's reluctance to attend the local veterans' commemorative party or to join in rap groups illustrates his deliberate avoidance of activities that dredge up specific memories of Vietnam, while his initial incident with Lonnie and Sam in Cawood's Pond demonstrates his susceptibility to flashbacks when confronted with a situation too strongly reminiscent of Vietnam. In Earl's childish fight with Pete and in Pete's own propensity for aimlessly firing his gun we see the sort of sporadic and unprovoked belligerence that sometimes marks those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Besides these defining symptoms, other behaviors commonly found in troubled Vietnam veterans should be noted: Emmett's searing headaches and nervous tics, Tom's impotence, the overwhelming despair and distrust clearly evident in Emmett's refusal to acknowledge that any worthy jobs exist, Pete's irrational longing to return to Vietnam, Emmett's feeling old beyond his years, feelings that the war was an absurdity or meaningless joke, feelings of betrayal by elected officials and the citizenry of the United States. Sam even recognizes in Tom the by now famous thousand-yard stare. One cannot read any comprehensive account of troubled Vietnam veterans without encountering the prevalence of these traits, some of which are held even by those who are well-adjusted. As for Mason's novel, this is a remarkably inclusive list, a list woven into the text without seeming strain, yet (perhaps partly because of this effortlessness) a list which has so far received insufficient critical attention despite the magnitude of the issues it suggests.

Emmett's inability to cope with deep feelings typifies those troubled veterans who demonstrate a marked problem handling emotions associated with intimacy, tenderness, and sexuality. Emmett, whose appearance, habits, and personal history hardly qualify him as the most sought after of local bachelors, is nevertheless in a position to pursue a relationship with Anita Stevens, a local nurse who is pretty, shapely, kind, bright, and funny. Although we may find it difficult to credit Anita's interest in Emmett because it is insufficiently motivated in the novel, it is important to note that despite her efforts to interest Emmett and her obvious genuine fondness for him, his pattern of behavior with her, though it includes efforts toward friendship, is always marked by a series of eventual retreats. Emmett is fond of Anita, but he denies himself the opportunity of establishing anything lasting between them. Instead he pretends or has managed to convince himself that Anita has no interest in him. “Anita doesn't want a birdwatcher in a skirt,” he says, alluding to his recent practice of wrapping himself in a skirt while working around the house (37). So incomprehensible to Sam is Emmett's seeming lack of interest in Anita that she wonders whether Emmett suffered some physical injury rendering him incapable of intimacies with women or uninterested in them. Eventually she brings up this subject with Emmett's mother, Grandma Smith, who has her own theory about mumps “falling” on Emmett in his youth, a theory decidedly more comic than Sam's but equally demonstrative of the lengths to which characters go in search of explanations for Emmett's oddities.

Emmett tries to justify his retreat from Anita by coupling it with an idea frequently voiced by Vietnam veterans, that unless someone experienced Vietnam for himself or herself, he or she cannot possibly understand what the veteran feels or thinks: “‘Women weren't over there,’ Emmett snapped. ‘So they can't really understand’” (107). Of course the consequence of repeating and believing this phrase, besides frustrating those who wish to understand and help, is to keep the veterans' problems bottled-up indefinitely. Hence the daily “closed meetings” of Hopewell's veterans over breakfast at McDonald's both reflect and reinforce the belief that none but another veteran can understand veterans. The inclusion of “herself” is very important here for frequently it is the wife, girlfriend, or mother of the man who makes the initial and most dogged attempts to understand him.⁴In Country follows this pattern. The major female characters attempt to take care of men, to restore or rejuvenate them. Irene took care of Emmett; Anita wants to take care of Emmett; Sam is preoccupied with the problems of Emmett and Tom. When the men remain wounded and distant, this nurturing role can become wearing, entrapping, even embittering for the women, as we see with Irene, who has come to share her father's belief that “it's not too late [for Emmett] to pull himself up and be proud” (149).

Distressingly, it often seems that Sam is simply preparing to take her mother's place as Emmett's caretaker, as Irene herself fears: “The trouble is, I carried Emmett around on a pillow all those years when I should have made him take more responsibility, and now you're trying to do the same thing I did” (166–67). Sam's relationship to Emmett is really one of child-as-parent. She has taken on responsibilities that ought not be hers, and she frequently acts as parent and Emmett as child. Sam gives far more attention to solving Emmett's problems and giving him guidance than she does to her own future. She seeks no advice from him and he offers none, even though they are both aware that she is not involved in any meaningful activities for the summer and has no worthy plans for the coming fall.

Far from living the life of the average adult, Emmett spends much of his time in seemingly adolescent behavior as if to recover the typical late adolescence that he was never allowed to experience. He will not look for a job; he watches a lot of television; he plays video games; he spends much of his time with his teenage niece and her teenage boyfriend; he “runs away from home” with Jim; he even passes out in front of the high school after drinking to excess. In and of themselves these activities are not all intrinsically adolescent, but neither the amount of time Emmett spends at them nor the degree of interest he shows in them is normal, especially when put in relief by the scant hours he spends pursuing strictly or typically adult activities. Sam observes that Emmett and his veteran friends were “not allowed to grow up. That was it—they didn't get to grow up and become regular people. They had to stand outside, playing games, fooling around, acting like kids who couldn't get girlfriends. It was absurd” (140).⁵

Along with Emmett's conspicuously unadult life, we notice his unwillingness to communicate. The more important it is for Emmett to discuss something, the more Sam wants him to open up; the more pressure he feels to divulge something about Vietnam, the more evasive and uncommunicative he becomes. Emmett is not the only veteran who exhibits reticence about discussing Vietnam, as we see in various veterans' sometimes condescending refusals to talk to Sam about Vietnam. Even Tom, usually the veteran most forthcoming with Sam, puts her off: “Look, Sam. It's hard to talk about, and some people want to protect you, you know. They don't want to dump all this stuff on you. … You shouldn't think about this stuff too much” (95). Not only is this reticence about Vietnam a part of the previously discussed pattern of men distancing themselves from women and from unpleasant memories, it is a frequent source of exasperation for Sam, who not only wishes to help but also wishes to learn about Vietnam for her own sake.

Though Hopewell's Vietnam veterans are largely unwilling to talk at any length with Sam about Vietnam, she can still observe their behavior and puzzle over it. What may not be apparent to Sam but eventually become so to the reader are the destructive—usually self-destructive—urges that seem to underlie the veterans' oddities and aberrations. Pete may be taken as representative of veterans who have longings to return to combat in general or to Vietnam in particular, who have returned home with behaviors that were adaptive in a war zone but are maladaptive in ordinary civilian life. Emmett tells Sam about Pete shooting his gun at nothing in particular and conjectures that Pete would “rather be back in Nam” (50). Later Tom expresses a similar opinion, and eventually Pete himself tells Sam in the half-articulate fashion typical of Hopewell's veterans, “Hell yeah, I admit it. I enjoyed it. I felt good over there. I knew what I was doing. I knew certain things. There was a dividing line. Life and death” (134). To Sam, whose predisposition is antiwar and whose uncle decries his own Vietnam experiences, such a sentiment begs for further explanation. For despite Pete's assertions that his life is now as good as he could expect, we are privy to an accumulation of details which reveal that Pete's marriage is unstable and that many of its problems can be traced to his unresolved feelings about Vietnam.

The degree of self-punishment involved in the behavior of many troubled Vietnam veterans has been well discussed in professional literature. Emmett's behavior is often inexplicable and aggravating for those who have to deal with it, including at times the reader, and yet the extreme measure of self-destructiveness involved in the strange things he does (or, what is often the case, fails to do) seems to go unnoticed by all except Sam. Perhaps understandably, most of the other characters, Emmett's family included, have become fed up with him to the point that they see his problems primarily insofar as they affect their own lives, as we have seen with Irene. The problem is clearly that lives are more difficult to reconstruct than the dirt bikes which Tom likes so well because he can “put one together and wreck it and then … just put … another one together” again (80).

The denial and self-destructiveness under discussion here are very frequently bound up with guilt, and we eventually learn that such is the case with In Country. In the climactic scene at Cawood's Pond, for the first time Emmett openly articulates his sense of guilt to Sam. “You can't do what we did and then be happy about it,” he says (222). It would seem, however, that Emmett's guilt involves something even more insidious than the pangs of regret he feels for his own actions. Robert Jay Lifton has shown that surviving as well as killing can cause guilt, and his concept of survivor's guilt is a valuable model for understanding Emmett, who eventually reveals that his own survival was made possible by the deaths of others. Indeed, in his case survival is not only a matter of symbolism or the product of a psychic construct, as is the case with many veterans, but it is also a literal truth. When Emmett finally opens up to Sam, we learn that he would very likely have been killed if it had not been for the corpses of his friends under which he hid after his unit was overrun in battle. He survived by lying hidden “for hours … until the next day” under the corpses of his fellow GIs, smelling their “warm blood in the jungle heat” while the enemy remained dangerously close by (223). Emmett's manner of telling this story coupled with his long history of post-traumatic stress disorder and his problems relating his experiences in Vietnam suggest

the soldier-survivor's sense of having betrayed his buddies by letting them die while he stayed alive. … [He cannot] feel that it was logical or right for him and not others to survive. Rather, he becomes bound to an unconscious perception of organic social balance which makes him feel that his survival was made possible by others' deaths: if they had not died, he would have had to; if he had not survived, someone else would have. His transgression, then, lies in having purchased his own life at the cost of another's. In a very real psychological sense he feels that he has killed that buddy.

(Lifton 105–106)

It would seem that years after his harrowing experience Emmett remains tormented by his own survival, as he finally says to Sam: “I'm damaged. It's like something in the center of my heart is gone and I can't get it back” (225).

In this climactic memory, Emmett's literal position underneath his fellow soldiers' corpses suggests the figurative position of the people of the United States: the personal and the societal coalesce in one image. Burdened with yet sheltered by the corpses of young men sent to fight battles which many thought it wrong to fight, American society has seemingly called upon its veterans for what has been termed a “double sacrifice.” First, veterans made many sacrifices in Vietnam, usually believing that they were serving their country; then they came home to a government and citizenry only too ready to sacrifice them again, this time “on the altar of shame and guilt in order to appease the national ‘conscience’” (Brende and Parson 48).

Epitomizing images such as that of Emmett hiding under the corpses are often the most memorable aspects of a piece of fiction because they crystallize the efforts of long stretches of story to embody a central truth. This particular image is telling because of its vivid, affective quality; it is appropriate because it is consistent with and consummate of what has heretofore been narrated both in its verisimilar content and in its unadorned style.

We must read to the novel's conclusion before we encounter an equally memorable image. In the novel's final paragraph Emmett is reading names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.; he is “sitting there cross-legged in front of the wall, and slowly his face bursts into a smile like flames” (245). But whereas the image of Emmett hiding under his dead buddies is true to the novel this image is not, for the astonishing simile Mason has chosen is jarring in its departure from the simple language that has heretofore been inseparable from In Country's style and its goals as a realistic work. At best one might try to make the case that this is an ambiguous image which appears abruptly in a novel that has not used unanchored symbols or highly abstracted metaphors.⁶ In actuality the novel presses for an even more misleading and inappropriate reading since the bent of part 3 obliges us to conclude that this image is not merely ambiguous but optimistic to the point of sanguinity.

Put simply, the novel does nothing to suggest how Emmett has come to the point where he can sit in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the state of enlightened inner peace and harmony which this Buddha-like closing image invokes. It is clear that not very much time has passed between Emmett's dramatic breakdown at Cawood's Pond which ends part 2 and the trip to Washington, D.C., which begins part 3—probably only a few days. The novel would have us believe that some change has come over Emmett sufficient to make him suddenly ready to come to terms with his past and at once willing, able, and sufficiently insightful to do so.

After three initial paragraphs devoted to describing the confused and aimless inertia that has overwhelmed Sam, Mason continues part 3 by quickly completing Sam and Emmett's role reversal. The next paragraph begins thus: “Then Emmett announced a plan.” And if this tersely stated turnabout in character is not enough to shock us, more follows immediately: “They were going to see the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. He was so definite about it. … He even insisted on bringing Mamaw along. … Emmett was so certain about everything that Sam felt powerless. Sam had never seen him swing into action like that” (230). In the space of one paragraph Emmett takes a job, plans to pay off an old debt to the federal government, and tells Sam that she will attend the University of Kentucky that fall.⁷

It is wrong even to suggest that any such sudden profound change could come over Emmett. As Robert Lifton has said in speaking of his experience helping troubled veterans to recover, “A veteran could never isolate all guilt around one or two particular actions and then be done with it—guilt is simply not manageable that way” (107). In Country's strength and virtue are to be found in its realism, a realism which I have attempted to show is grounded in authentic depictions of the Vietnam War's damaging effects upon many of those who returned from fighting it and, by extension, upon a society which should deal with these returnees. But although Mason has succeeded in portraying a microcosm of veterans' problems and troubled behaviors in part 2, she has failed to finish the story properly. She simply wills it to end, apparently succumbing to “literary fancy” or to an “expression of her desires” rather than imaginatively fighting through to formulate a verisimilar ending based on “realistic observation,” to return to Bramstedt's words.

This final failure of In Country should be seen in light of its three-part structure. The work gives the distinct appearance of having a long, novellike middle (part 2) sandwiched between two halves of a short story. The tone and events of parts 1 and 3, the parts which comprise the “short story,” suggest an encouraging account of a healing family, of the reintegration of a troubled veteran into a once careless society, and of reconciliation on both a personal and a societal level. Taken on their own, parts 1 and 3 would comprise a gently comic, hopeful story. The trouble is that they do not meld with the material in the truly novelistic second part wherein we see the depth of Emmett's psychic wounds and the breadth of havoc which the war has played upon so many veterans' lives. The stuff of relatively hard-edged realism cannot be instantly and carelessly yoked to the sort of pat ending typical of a television movie.⁸

To retain the meticulous verisimilitude it has achieved in part 2, In Country needs at least to suggest that Emmett has only begun to solve his problems, that as difficult as his moment at Cawood's Pond was for him, he can expect to face more such moments, and that while keeping things bottled-up eventually creates a horrible numbness toward life, letting things out has its own set of difficulties to overcome and its own anguish to endure. Granted that Mason is by no means obligated to make the detailed depiction of Emmett's next stage of recovery a part of this novel, still she should not reverse her course by implying that instantaneous harmonious integration of self and society is somehow possible for a man like Emmett. The difficulties that Emmett is likely to face if he is truly to recover could be subtly suggested and left for the reader to explore; that is to say, there is no reason why part 3 cannot successfully retain the technique and style that made part 2 so effective. But in the end, alas, Hopewell becomes Fantasyland.

Notes

1. Except for ignorance, it is difficult to explain, for example, why the reviewer for one highly regarded periodical chose to characterize Emmett as “amiably weird,” as if he were simply a little dotty (Boston). These are the only words used to describe Emmett, and hence they must stand as the predominant impression of him that the critic wishes to convey. Considered on its own, this inaccuracy simply bespeaks a particularly uninsightful reading, but considered in the context of the critical inadvertence I have described, it seems to suggest that even some of the most literate readers are oblivious to the problems of troubled veterans or at least to the seriousness of these problems.

2. I would like to draw deliberate attention here to my use of the adjective “troubled” to modify veterans. Nothing in this essay is meant to imply that all, or even most, veterans suffer debilitating psychosocial problems. The facts are quite otherwise. The depiction of those veterans who are troubled is the subject of discussion here.

3. For detailed studies of troubled Vietnam veterans, the reader should refer to the work of Brende and Parson, Figley and Leventman, Hendin and Haas, and Lifton. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association for the first time delineated the term “post-traumatic stress disorder” in a detailed clinical definition and description in their revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). This definition is excerpted by Brende and Parson (77–78) and paraphrased by Hendin and Haas (30–31). See also Laufer et al.

4. The central role of women in Vietnam veteran recovery is especially well discussed in Brende and Parson's sixth chapter.

5. In his article, “Conflict, Stress, and Growth: The Effects of War on Psychosocial Development among Vietnam Veterans,” John P. Wilson uses an Eriksonian model of psychosocial growth to discuss the fact that nearly all combat GIs were deprived of the opportunity to develop along normal lines during the critical period of late adolescence, a stage of especially difficult psychosocial tasks even under normal circumstances. He writes: “Where the stress overpowers the individual's ability to meet the demands confronting him, a retrogression to earlier modes of conflict resolution may occur” (137). Although Wilson does not specifically discuss turning toward typically adolescent behavior at inappropriate times, he does discuss the immaturity and inability to resolve problems in an adult fashion characteristic of many troubled Vietnam veterans.

6. The important exception to this lack of highly allusive symbolism is the egret that Emmett periodically hopes to see.

7. It might be objected here that Emmett's newfound energy and purposefulness are simply a product of the narration being filtered through Sam's dazed point of view, that it is she alone who regards Emmett as “definite” and “certain.” This argument does not bear out, however. Regardless of Sam's condition and of the narrative focus, Emmett is unquestionably presented as undertaking these various activities all at once. A man who hasn't worked, traveled, or taken responsibility for years is presented as suddenly, “confidently” venturing to do all three.

8. It is sadly ironic that a novel which has frequently pointed out the gross inadequacies of television as a model of the world and as a helpful shaper of psyches should itself succumb to the sort of facile, Pollyanna ending characteristic of television. Sam frequently refers to television in order to judge her own behavior and make sense of her situations. She herself thinks at one point that Emmett's problems cannot be resolved in the manner that problems are so quickly resolved on her own favorite show, M*A*S*H.

Works Cited

Boston, Anne. “With the Vets in Hopewell.” Times Literary Supplement, April 18, 1986, 416.

Bramstedt, Ernest K. Aristocracy and the Middle Classes in Germany: Social Types in German Literature. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Brende, Joel Osler, and Erwin Randolph Parson. Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery. New York: Plenum, 1985.

Figley, Charles R., and Seymour Leventman, eds. Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans since the War. New York: Praeger, 1980.

Hendin, Herbert, and Ann Pollinger Haas. Wounds of War: The Psychological Aftermath of Combat in Vietnam. New York: Basic, 1984.

Laufer, Robert S., Ellen Frey-Wouters, and Mark S. Gallops. “Traumatic Stressors in the Vietnam War and Post-traumatic Stress Disorders.” Trauma and Its Wake: The Study and Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Ed. Charles R. Figley. New York: Brunner, Mazel, 1985.

Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon, 1973.

Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country. New York: Harper, 1985.

Newman, Charles. The Post-Modern Aura: The Act of Fiction in an Age of Inflation. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1985.

Opdahl, Keith. “The Nine Lives of Literary Realism.” Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. Malcolm Bradbury and Sigmund Ro. London: Edward Arnold, 1987.

Wilson, John P. “Conflict, Stress, and Growth: The Effect of War on Psychosocial Development among Vietnam Veterans.” In Strangers at Home.