Word: pegs
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C.D.B. BRYAN is surprised that Friendly Fire has evoked such an overwhelming and enthusiastic response. He met Gene and Peg Mullen, the heroes of his book, five years ago, and instantly became fascinated and obsessed with the story of the death of their first-born son, Michael, in Vietnam in 1970, and their subsequent involvement in the antiwar movement. Bryan wrote 900 pages, decided he had used the wrong approach, and rewrote the entire book, all the while nagged by the conviction that there was growing in America an unwillingness to think about Vietnam, that his book, when it eventually...
Bryan deserves every bit of praise he will undoubtedly continue to receive for this book--for its sweep and beauty, for his faith in its importance which sustained him, and for the honesty which informs it. He is explicit: he writes that Friendly Fire depends on "the exploitation of Peg Mullen's grief" and he is ambivalent about that, as he should be. Bryan last week recalled a visit he made recently to a Western college where, to his surprise, the discussion centered around the "style" of the book. Bryan, a low-keyed person, blurted out, "Style is not what...
...artillery, so they began to send off letters--to officials on all levels of government, to soldiers in Michael's outfit who were still in Vietnam, to others left with empty spaces in their lives by the continuing carnage. They placed advertisements in Iowa newspapers protesting against the war. Peg attended antiwar rallies, including the 1971 Mayday march on Washington, while Gene, more retiring, argued with local American Legionaries and doubters at the tractor factory where he worked the afternoon shift in addition to farming...
...task, to decode a series of radio pulses being received from the vicinity of a G dwarf designated as Ratner's Star. Billy is soon accosted by a parade of scientists and deep thinkers. Their names (Shlorno Glottic, Grbk, Orang Mohole, Desilu Espy, Hoy King Toy) seem to peg them as refugees from Thomas Pynchon's Central Casting. Their inevitable behavior - alternately cerebral and cloacal - confirms the identification...
Ehrlichman, alas, serves up a minibiography as each minor character appears ("His age was hard to peg," etc.). He is afflicted by compulsive total recall of menus (at CIA headquarters dessert is austere "melon and cookies"; the G Street Club offers "a perfect, soft Brie"). But his prose, often better than serviceable, is sometimes very cutting indeed. (The political career of a Democratic Vice President is summed up as "a lackluster, snail creep to seniority.") By the time the reader gets to President No. 3, Richard Monckton, he is meant to accept Ehrlichman's jungle view of life...