Ed reviewed Dispatches by Michael Herr
Engaging and never dry
5 stars
Engaging colourful take on the Vietnam war from the authors time as a war correspondent. Easy book to read from cover to cover.
Hardcover, 207 pages
Published Oct. 24, 1997 by Picador.
Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977.
From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.
Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.
Engaging colourful take on the Vietnam war from the authors time as a war correspondent. Easy book to read from cover to cover.
I read this many years ago - not long after publication. I remember it as a fine piece of reporting, an insight into how day to day soldiering was experienced in Vietnam by the American GIs.