The Road Home (Point Signature) - Softcover

Opening in an Army emergency room in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, this novel gives readers an unforgettable glimpse of the everyday carnage of war. Army nurse Rebecca Phillips (first introduced in White's pseudonymously written Echo Company series) relies on Darvon, amphetamines, Coca-Cola and booze-not to mention her own indomitable spirit-to get through the grueling hours caring for wounded and dying young soldiers. A perfectionist with a tart tongue and fondness for old movies, Rebecca wrestles with despair about the war, guilt and responsibility; she also has a difficult romance with Michael Jennings (also of the Echo Company books), a "grunt" who is severely wounded before his discharge. Numb and confused following her own return to the States, Rebecca sets out on a cross-country road trip-and ends up in Michael's hometown. Even in a novel with as much momentum as this one has (and White's wise-cracking prose style is as readable as ever), the lump-in-the-throat intensity of Rebecca and Michael's prickly reunion is striking. Inextricable from the story's anti-war theme is its fiercely compassionate loyalty to the people who served in Vietnam, making this an intriguing complement to such novels as Marsha Qualey's Come In from the Cold. Ages 13-up. (Mar.)q
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 8-12?A gripping book set during the late 1960s. Shortly after finishing nursing school, Becky Phillips, 21, goes to Vietnam, where she has been "in country" for almost a year. Her daily tasks involve horror and blood as the choppers unload countless wounded GIs. She is plagued by many demons, including surviving an attack on a helicopter and watching as two friends died. She and Michael, one of the young soldiers in the company, begin writing, and a romance develops. Then he is brought to the ER, and the cocky, confident kid she has come to know is now an angry, embittered young man who is sent home. Finally, it is time for Becky to return to her former world. In a particularly moving scene, a businessman in the airplane seat next to her all but recoils at the sight of her uniform. Once home, after spending her days in her room and her nights drinking on the living-room couch, she heads West, finds Michael, and tries to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. White's account makes readers feel the agony of Vietnam...not just the horror of war, but the pain of knowing that those who served and suffered were despised by a large part of the society that sent them there in the first place.?Evelyn Carter Walker, Alexandrian Public Library, Mt. Vernon, IN
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.