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Content snapshot
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Violence
Very heavy
Extreme war violence throughout; Johnson does not protect the reader from what combat looks like
Language
A lot
Extreme profanity throughout — soldiers' language reproduced with documentary force
Sexual Content
Some
Some sexual content in the wartime setting
Substance Use
A lot
Pervasive drug and alcohol use throughout — integral to the Vietnam experience depicted
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Strong psychological content: moral disintegration, PTSD, survivor guilt, and the question of what a person becomes after sustained exposure to violence
What this book is about
Denis Johnson's National Book Award-winning Vietnam novel follows multiple characters across a decade of the war: a CIA operative running a psychological operation his superiors don't sanction, two brothers from Phoenix who enlist at different points, and a Canadian nurse. Johnson weaves these perspectives together into a hallucinatory, beautiful, and devastating portrait of what the Vietnam conflict did to everyone it touched — American, Vietnamese, and otherwise.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Extreme war violence throughout
Pervasive drug use as part of the Vietnam experience
Extreme profanity
Moral disintegration and psychological trauma as central subjects
Reader Verification
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