First published 2007
Skip Sands arrives in Vietnam as a young American spy in training, working in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong. He dreams of becoming the Wise American or the Good American, rejecting the stereotypes of the Quiet American and the Ugly American. But his famous uncle, a war hero known only as the Colonel, drags Skip into disasters that transform his self-image completely. Meanwhile, the Houston brothers, Bill and James, drift from the Arizona desert into this same war, where the boundaries between disinformation and delusion dissolve entirely. All these characters search desperately for connection and meaning, whether through sex, death, or divine grace. Their stories unfold in a conflict where nothing remains clear and everyone struggles with profound loneliness. Skip watches himself become first the Real American, then simply the Fucking American, as the war strips away his idealism and forces him to confront who he really is.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vietnam
Period: Vietnam War
624 pages · Kindle Edition · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Content warnings: violence, war