Alone in the Valley

This first novel by a disabled Vietnam veteran compassionately examines a year in the life of a combat infantryman during that conflict. As the protagonist, 19-year-old Daniel Perdue, gains experience in the field, so does the reader, who comes to share Perdue's heightened awareness and sense of paranoia. In his handling of the volatile subjects of serious injury and death, Baker sidesteps the trap of sensationalism--in fact, one important character is killed off-stage as the reader follows Perdue's exploits on R&R. The narrative remains focused on the grunt's life of monotony mixed with fear, so powerfully evoked as to provide a better understanding of why many veterans have never entirely overcome the war's terrors. Undue repetition and diffuse (but authentically profane) dialogue too often disrupt the novel's rhythm, but an absorbing plot unfurled with gripping realism and an evocative sense of time and place will stir memories and convictions. ( Aug. )