Dirty Work

Larry Brown. Vintage Books USA, $13 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-679-73049-1

Two devastatingly wounded Vietnam vets, Chaney, who is black, and James, white, both sons of the South, lie in a veteran's hospital and talk freely about combat, movies, sex, old loves, their boyhoods, how it feels to kill a man and why God allows wars to happen. PW described this novel as ``wrenching'' and ``memorable.'' (Oct.)

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