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Fatal Light
In 1967, a West Virginia 18-year-old is ordered to report for induction later that year, a far cry from the college football scholarship he had hoped for and the promise of luminous places. His father plies him with military memories of sex and music; his mother puts on an unwavering face; and his girlfriend, Mary, tells him she won't wait for him.
Once in country, the soldier goes on rescue missions (which often involve picking up more dead than wounded), smokes pot, tries to cope with the dense air, elephant grass, monkeys' screams--and not focus on the killing. He encloses a photo with a letter to Mary and points out that the bulge in his pocket is a paperback of Emily Dickinson: "Such things live together here, poetry and shotguns." Richard Currey writes in that same mixture of violence and lyricism, because for his soldier Vietnam is a place of cruel extremes. Next to a spot where bodies are piled, "the sun was dropping in an elegant fog of muted roses that I might call lovely if I though my feelings were intact," he later tells his girlfriend.
Discharge brings the difficulty of resuming life. Attempting to describe his experience, he brings up one of the more palatable names for Vietnam--"a world of hurt." Fatal Light is an achingly poetic re-creation of an ugly history.
195 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 24, 2021
Fiction and yet not fiction. To capture a sense of place and loss shared by so many of those who physically survived Vietnam. Just checked 4 of the library systems in my screen - this book isn't there. It feels like we've lost our souls if we can forget them.
January 27, 2011
"According to the author's introduction to this new edition of Fatal Light, the novel was written following a decade of poetry, prose poetry, and short story writing. Currey's experience in poetry and short-form fiction is apparent in the novel's structure, in which vignettes - some no longer than half a page, some poetic, some more traditionally narrative - link together to form a portrait of a young man's experience serving in the Vietnam war.[return][return]While I found the novel moving, and am very glad to have read it, the impressionistic effect of the structure and the highly figurative language of some sections was not quite to my taste. I felt distant from the narrator due to the lack of a strong narrative, and further alienated by many of the prose poetry segments, where I found the imagery obstructive rather than illuminating. This was a surprise since I read a lot of poetry and am no stranger to an oblique metaphor! However, I think it likely stems from my personal preference for longer, narrative fiction rather than being a reflection of the quality of the novel. The fragmented story is itself an excellent metaphor for an incomprehensible conflict whose participants, like the narrator, will struggle to make sense of it. Thus, although it wasn't my cup of tea, I feel my time was well-spent with this novel and do recommend it to others."
February 4, 2013
A brilliant fictional account of a soldier before, during and most importantly after the Vietnam war. Like Tim O'Brien's "The Thing's They Carried" Currey cuts to the quick of the war scene - that he isn't better known is hard to understand. It starts off innocently enough but ends with a punch that you will never forget - this book should be mandatory reading for all high school English classes, especially for those that see glory in warring
May 24, 2010
Very well put together. Shockingly gorgeous images of wartime. Currey is able to turn phrases that will stun you.
November 7, 2023
A brilliant short novel about the terrible aspects of war. Currey spent four years as a combat medic with the Marines in the War in Vietnam. It's a series of vignettes, and the prose is haunting and poetic. The unnamed narrator tells of his childhood in Morgantown, West Virginia. He grew up in a caring family. In high school he was a star running back on the football team. When he graduated in 1967, he was drafted. He had a girlfriend Mary, who said she couldn't wait on him coming back, implying she would see other men.
Of Vietnam, the narrator says, "Such things live together here, poetry and shotguns. Alive and well in a single body." Since he was often in the front lines, the scenes are graphic, and at times hard to read. He comes upon a hut and hears someone moving inside. Calls in Vietnamese for the person to show themselves, but there's no response, so he shoots. He killed an unharmed man. And the narrator feels horrible over it.
It's and honest yet lyrical account of a time spent in battle. With dazzling writing.
Of Vietnam, the narrator says, "Such things live together here, poetry and shotguns. Alive and well in a single body." Since he was often in the front lines, the scenes are graphic, and at times hard to read. He comes upon a hut and hears someone moving inside. Calls in Vietnamese for the person to show themselves, but there's no response, so he shoots. He killed an unharmed man. And the narrator feels horrible over it.
It's and honest yet lyrical account of a time spent in battle. With dazzling writing.
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October 19, 2024En muista aiemmin lukeneeni Vietnamin sotaan sijoittuvia kirjoja, mutta alku oli onnistunut. Richard Curreyn omiin kokemuksiin pohjautuva, hyvinkin lyyrinen romaani Musta valo ei ahnehdi kertomaan suuria totuuksia vaan avaa sen pikkuriikkisen näkökulman, joka yksittäisellä ihmisellä on. Currey kirjoittaa hienosti siitä epätodellisuuden tunteesta, joka ottaa Länsi-Virginiasta kotoisin olevan nuoren miehen otteeseensa tuhansien kilometrien päässä, vieraiden ihmisten keskellä, vihamielisessä ympäristössä. Hän ei halunnut mennä sinne, mutta suvun perinteet eivät antaneet vaihtoehtoja. Musta valo koostuu lyhyistä katkelmista, hetkistä perheen tai tyttöystävän kanssa, armeijan koneellisuudesta, verenvuodatuksen seurauksista sielunelämälle ja lopuksi paluusta kotiin ikuisesti muuttuneena, vieraaseen aikaan takaisin tulleena. Jos etsii kylmiä tosiasioita Vietnamin sodasta, tämä on väärä valinta, mutta Currey avaa hienosti ruohonjuuritason maailman keskellä vaikeasti ymmärrettävää tilannetta.
December 3, 2021
A tightly wound staccato series of luminously written glimpses into the Vietnam War experience.
July 11, 2023
Good fiction.
December 18, 2011
"It is that living, while it goes on, can seem like light itself, a perpetual slide of morning out of dawn's rare edge of perfect watery blue, light that leans and spills from a space in the sky between mountains and a roof of storm cloud, light escaping a doomed past to live again above our heads in passing glory."
Fatal Light is my first experience with Vietnam fiction. I specifically signed up for War thru the Ages Challenge again this year because I had no experience with Vietnam outside of some really great films (Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, Born on the Fourth of July).
Richard Currey first published this book twenty years ago; it's been reprinted for its anniversary. The book is not a memoir, however, it is based on Currey's own experience as a medic in 1968.
Fatal Light is told in brief chapters which are snippets of the young soldier's life. The stream of conscious prose works. It's disjointed enough to feel as though you are truly inside the mind of the soldier, yet flows in manner necessary for it to be a seamless read.
The soldier is drafted and even though this is not a popular war, it is obvious that his family has a patriotic spirit that invokes a certain amount of obligation for the narrator. In fact, the father reminisces about his own military experience often with that *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* manner about the booze and ladies that his son will experience.
When in Vietnam we are introduced to both a beautiful backdrop and a miserably existence. There is no character development, and no internal conflict. It's a book about existence. A sliver of someone's life that we sorta stumble upon. But I guarantee you, once you get inside the narrator's head, it's difficult to get out. This novella isn't surprising. I didn't walk away from it with a greater knowledge of the war or its effects on our soldiers. I did however walk away with a piece of humanity. Of experience.
It ends like a day in your life might end. There's no warm emotional fuzzies. There's no implication that the narrator cannot survive twenty years later in a world that he doesn't feel apart of. It ends as if you went to sleep on your day, and then you woke up. Does that make sense? It just stops. Mid life.
In any event, I loved this book for the reality that it evokes. And I highly recommend it. I don't know how it compares to other Vietnam wars, but it's got to be good if it's re-released, right?
Fatal Light is my first experience with Vietnam fiction. I specifically signed up for War thru the Ages Challenge again this year because I had no experience with Vietnam outside of some really great films (Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, Born on the Fourth of July).
Richard Currey first published this book twenty years ago; it's been reprinted for its anniversary. The book is not a memoir, however, it is based on Currey's own experience as a medic in 1968.
Fatal Light is told in brief chapters which are snippets of the young soldier's life. The stream of conscious prose works. It's disjointed enough to feel as though you are truly inside the mind of the soldier, yet flows in manner necessary for it to be a seamless read.
The soldier is drafted and even though this is not a popular war, it is obvious that his family has a patriotic spirit that invokes a certain amount of obligation for the narrator. In fact, the father reminisces about his own military experience often with that *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* manner about the booze and ladies that his son will experience.
When in Vietnam we are introduced to both a beautiful backdrop and a miserably existence. There is no character development, and no internal conflict. It's a book about existence. A sliver of someone's life that we sorta stumble upon. But I guarantee you, once you get inside the narrator's head, it's difficult to get out. This novella isn't surprising. I didn't walk away from it with a greater knowledge of the war or its effects on our soldiers. I did however walk away with a piece of humanity. Of experience.
It ends like a day in your life might end. There's no warm emotional fuzzies. There's no implication that the narrator cannot survive twenty years later in a world that he doesn't feel apart of. It ends as if you went to sleep on your day, and then you woke up. Does that make sense? It just stops. Mid life.
In any event, I loved this book for the reality that it evokes. And I highly recommend it. I don't know how it compares to other Vietnam wars, but it's got to be good if it's re-released, right?
July 31, 2011
Richard Currey is a phenomenal writer. He has a unique ability to create terrifying, beautiful, and unforgettable images with only a few words.
Fatal Light followed the story of a seemingly unremarkable Midwestern boy who had a most likely unremarkable future until he was drafted for Vietnam. Right before leaving for the war, the main character meets a woman, Mary, and falls in love. He proposes to her before leaving the country, but she hesitates to accept his offer since she did not want to worry that he has died or wait indefinitely for his return.
The main character, who I do not recall is even given a name, heads off for Vietnam as a medic. While in Vietnam he faces death both in combat and by contracting malaria. His dreams of Mary and their future lives together help keep him alive. He returns to the United States as a changed man with difficulty facing the future and reconciling his life as a soldier with that as an ordinary American.
Fatal Light is not a book about war but rather a book about the human mind. It follows a seemingly ordinary man's existence in a war for which the man can find no purpose. A war where the enemy can be a seemingly innocent civilian by day but an enemy soldier at night. While the book used the Vietnam War for its backdrop, the stage could have been inter-changed for any other seemingly pointless war.
Dr. Currey skillfully portrayed the inner-thoughts of the soldiers during Vietnam. Through few words, he describes the reflections of the main character as he waits for the opposition forces to strike, as he watches a follow soldier die, as he hallucinates during malarial fevers, and as he copes with deaths of seemingly innocent civilians. The book culminates in the last section where we see the difficulty the previously ordinary man has in integrating back into a society that hadn't changed even though he had lived through events that can only be described as extraordinary.
Needless to say, I highly recommend this book.
Fatal Light followed the story of a seemingly unremarkable Midwestern boy who had a most likely unremarkable future until he was drafted for Vietnam. Right before leaving for the war, the main character meets a woman, Mary, and falls in love. He proposes to her before leaving the country, but she hesitates to accept his offer since she did not want to worry that he has died or wait indefinitely for his return.
The main character, who I do not recall is even given a name, heads off for Vietnam as a medic. While in Vietnam he faces death both in combat and by contracting malaria. His dreams of Mary and their future lives together help keep him alive. He returns to the United States as a changed man with difficulty facing the future and reconciling his life as a soldier with that as an ordinary American.
Fatal Light is not a book about war but rather a book about the human mind. It follows a seemingly ordinary man's existence in a war for which the man can find no purpose. A war where the enemy can be a seemingly innocent civilian by day but an enemy soldier at night. While the book used the Vietnam War for its backdrop, the stage could have been inter-changed for any other seemingly pointless war.
Dr. Currey skillfully portrayed the inner-thoughts of the soldiers during Vietnam. Through few words, he describes the reflections of the main character as he waits for the opposition forces to strike, as he watches a follow soldier die, as he hallucinates during malarial fevers, and as he copes with deaths of seemingly innocent civilians. The book culminates in the last section where we see the difficulty the previously ordinary man has in integrating back into a society that hadn't changed even though he had lived through events that can only be described as extraordinary.
Needless to say, I highly recommend this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 5, 2009In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien wrote at length about truth in war stories.
"A true war story is never moral," he wrote. "If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie ... often in a true war story there is not even a point."
By this yardstick, Fatal Light rings true: here we have no rectitude, or moral, or even a coherent narrative in any traditional sense. What we have is a collection of short, sharply drawn vignettes that collectively sketch the story. A naive young man goes off to war, endures it, and returns home.
And that's about that. There is no great character arc, no epiphany or moral development; our young man is changed, to be sure, but the change serves no apparent agenda. He does not, for example, Become A Man. He simply comes back scarred. And consequently, Fatal Light rings true in a way most war stories do not.
It's not surprising to see that Tim O'Brien blurbed it, for Fatal Light is similar to The Things They Carried. O'Brien's metafictional riffing is absent, and the vignettes in Fatal Light more closely linked, but Currey's approach is similarly indirect. He doesn't want to instruct us; he simply wants to show us something.
Show us he does. Currey's background as a poet is on display: this man can write, and his vignettes spill forth as a series of sharp, focused images.
If you expect a novel to develop a character and advance a moral argument, then Fatal Light is not for you. But if, on the other hand, you see a novel as an aesthetic experience, driven by a keen eye and a precise, original voice, then Fatal Light is highly recommended.
"A true war story is never moral," he wrote. "If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie ... often in a true war story there is not even a point."
By this yardstick, Fatal Light rings true: here we have no rectitude, or moral, or even a coherent narrative in any traditional sense. What we have is a collection of short, sharply drawn vignettes that collectively sketch the story. A naive young man goes off to war, endures it, and returns home.
And that's about that. There is no great character arc, no epiphany or moral development; our young man is changed, to be sure, but the change serves no apparent agenda. He does not, for example, Become A Man. He simply comes back scarred. And consequently, Fatal Light rings true in a way most war stories do not.
It's not surprising to see that Tim O'Brien blurbed it, for Fatal Light is similar to The Things They Carried. O'Brien's metafictional riffing is absent, and the vignettes in Fatal Light more closely linked, but Currey's approach is similarly indirect. He doesn't want to instruct us; he simply wants to show us something.
Show us he does. Currey's background as a poet is on display: this man can write, and his vignettes spill forth as a series of sharp, focused images.
If you expect a novel to develop a character and advance a moral argument, then Fatal Light is not for you. But if, on the other hand, you see a novel as an aesthetic experience, driven by a keen eye and a precise, original voice, then Fatal Light is highly recommended.
April 28, 2014
I wouldn't categorize 'Fatal Light' as a typical (anti) war book – a big part of the novel portrays the life of the protagonist before and after he served in Vietnam. In his preface, the author says he wanted to show how war changes a person, that a soldier is a different individual before and after war. The most used means of Richard Currey illustrating this transition are scenic descriptions, depicting experiences of the protagonist in a very graphic and prosaic way. On the one hand, those descriptions are full of atmosphere and quite stirring. On the other hand, the shortness of the chapters leaves the reader in the dark about many traits of the author's alter ego. I couldn't really connect with the central character, but maybe that's because he went to war and I didn't. Historically, 'Fatal Light' for sure is an important work considering the U.S. history. Regarding it's value as a novel, it makes a somehow unfinished impression on me.
November 16, 2010
Richard Currey‘s Fatal Light is an unusual novel in which an unnamed narrator provides readers with an inside view of what it is like to be a draftee before, during, and after the war. Beyond the bullets, the Viet Cong, the mines, and the brutality of war, soldiers had to navigate a culture they didn’t understand, malaria, injury, and unexpected relationships. The prose is sparse and the chapters are small, but each line, each chapter can knock readers over or back into their seats after putting them on the edge.
The unnamed narrator’s family is dispersed between West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio, and the tranquility of the Ohio River and its surrounding landscape acts as the backdrop for the later contrasts of Vietnam’s jungles and the war.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/11/f...
The unnamed narrator’s family is dispersed between West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio, and the tranquility of the Ohio River and its surrounding landscape acts as the backdrop for the later contrasts of Vietnam’s jungles and the war.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/11/f...
November 27, 2011
I had never heard of this little book or its author before receiving it as a gift a few years back. Waited some time and finally threw it in a travel bag to take along on a train ride home for Thanksgiving, 2011. Not more than a few pages in I became it was clear that Curry was a serious author. I was very surprised by the strong quality of his prose, which at times read like a stream of conscious, yet this book is lean. Complex without being silly. Curry includes some of the classic Vietnam War topics but there also some very insightful and unique moments as well. The book bogs down a little towards when the main character comes home. The story veers it's closest to sentimentality. A modest little piece of quality writing. What ever flaws exist can be easily forgiven.
October 11, 2012
"A peculiar thin, growing old," my grandfather said. "It's as if you -- everything you are, your hopes and dreams, your wishes, desires, the way you feel about the world -- it's all the same. The same as always. But the world has changed around you ... The difference I'm talking about is not -- I don't know, inventions and technology, and all that, it's something ..."
"Like you've lost your own time."
"The rest of us continue to walk, although we have become confused about why, or where it is we must go, or do when we arrive, and we fear our destination more than any beast we might imagine, and it is the eighth of June, and the ninth, and the tenth, and we are walking, afraid to continue and afraid to stop."
"Like you've lost your own time."
"The rest of us continue to walk, although we have become confused about why, or where it is we must go, or do when we arrive, and we fear our destination more than any beast we might imagine, and it is the eighth of June, and the ninth, and the tenth, and we are walking, afraid to continue and afraid to stop."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2010
3 and a half actually. Good Vietnam/post-Vietnam book. A little too poetic at times, but it's up there with Dispatches and some of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam books that aren't THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, or Kent Anderson's Nightdogs, which may be the best Vietnam book ever written that isn't actually set in the war. This one's not as HEAVY as those, but still packs a serious punch, especially the parts that take place after the protagonist makes it back home.
February 16, 2015
I've read a fair number of books about Vietnam, and this is definitely one of the very best. Currey doesn't spend a lot of time fleshing out his central character, but the book illuminates by selecting what might be described and what is left unsaid. The epilogue itself, succinct yet powerful in a mere three paragraphs, is the most vivid, resonant description of the whole Vietnam experience I have yet come across. I have re-read it at least five times since finishing the book.
April 29, 2009
This classic novel of a soldier's experiences in Vietnam and his return home has recently been reissued. Prior to writing this novel, Currey wrote poetry and short stories, which shows in the brief chapters, the episodic narrative, and the poetic prose. This soldier's story is well written, deeply affecting, and more relevant today than I would like it to be.
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August 7, 2011Vietnam book about going to war, enduring hell and trying to come home. Written by a NM Physican's Assistant who had been a medic in Vietnam. No mystery, no heroism, just trying to survive one day at a tiem, putting one foot in front of the other and then trying to fit back into a worlld you left behind. Great stuff.
July 25, 2016
As I noted at the time, this is the story of a West Virginia boy, drafted right out of high school in 1968. The book covers his memories of boyhood, his service 'in country' as a medic and his difficult return home from Vietnam.
May 12, 2015
3.5 stars. I'm not a "war" novel fellow per se....
Gerald: "Oh really?"
Gerald: "Oh really?"
August 1, 2019
A great read. Well crafted and expertly told.
October 25, 2013
Excellent book. I think it tells the real toll that war takes on the young men who have to go and fight.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews