In his latest book, Robert Olen Butler returns to his familiar ground of Vietnam and the war that ripped apart his generation. He follows several generations of a Southern family that has been deeply divided by the war.
Butler, 71, is a veteran who learned Vietnamese for his job in the Army. He has written several books on one aspect or another of the war. One of those, “A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain,” won the Pulitzer Prize for best fiction in 1993.
In “Perfume River,” Butler continues in his sensitive, highly nuanced, roaming style to explore the repercussions the war has had on its American veterans, their families and their relationships. It’s not oversimplifying this story to say one should read his novels with an open mind and sense of empathy for his characters.
The going is slow for the first 50 or so pages; then the story begins to come together about the confusing, emotional pain of two brothers decades after the war.
Their father is himself a veteran (World War II). William Quinlan is also a judgmental, rigid man about to die.
One son, Robert, now 70 and a history professor at Florida State University, is haunted by an act of war: He may have killed a Vietnamese man during a battle in Hue, where the Perfume River empties into the South China Sea. He craves his father’s approval, a familiar though often not acknowledged feeling among many veterans regardless of their age.
Robert’s brother, Jimmy, is two years younger and lives in Canada, where he fled during the war. Jimmy and his father haven’t spoken for years because William believes Jimmy ran away from fighting for his country.
Jimmy and his wife, Linda, have an open arrangement that allows infidelity. Robert and his wife, Darla, get along well enough, but Robert still remembers a Vietnamese woman from the war.
Butler writes of Robert, “... on the night his father fell and began to hasten toward death, his remembrance of lost passion flows on in him like a river of cerulean blue and enters the sea ...”
A bare-bones outline of Butler’s novel does not do justice to his eloquent style. At times, he moves from one setting and one character to another — including an unstable homeless man who may be a veteran — which is one reason the early part of the novel can be confusing.
At one point, I thought about drawing a family tree to help me follow the characters. Then, as I became accustomed to them, the story became clear about the ways the characters wrestled with impact of the violence and dislocations of war, as happened in many families two generations ago.
When William is in a hospital, Robert visits, hoping to win approval since he did go to Vietnam (though he was in a relatively safe military compound and not out in the field).
William tells Robert that he has lost one son: Jimmy, who fled to Canada and in his father’s eyes dishonored the family’s name. Robert is eager to hear his father say that he was a brave soldier and therefore accepted as a man.
William says this instead: “So I’ve held my tongue. But the truth is you didn’t go to war. You went through the motions. But you turned it into graduate school. You contrived a comfortable place at the edge of the action to go study. You didn’t even let the army decide your fate. You wangled your safe little job with a pre-enlistment deal and avoided the real thing. You told all the others who manned up, ‘Better you do the dirty work, not me. Better your blood than mine.’”
This is tough stuff: A father near the end of his life who withholds the one thing his son seeks — his approval and, in effect, his blessing.
Once again, Butler has written a meaningful novel for the Vietnam War generation. And for their children and grandchildren.
Repps Hudson is a freelance writer and adjunct instructor of journalism and international affairs. He was an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam.
Robert Olen Butler
When • 7 p.m. Thursday
Where • Schlafly library, 225 North Euclid Avenue
How much • Free
More info • 314-367-4120
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