Dispatches
Michael Herr · 1977
The definitive account of the Vietnam War, written in hallucinatory present tense that matches the psychedelic horror of the war itself. Herr was a correspondent who embedded with soldiers and wrote what he saw without any pretense of objectivity. Influenced Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket (Herr co-wrote the narration).
The case against
Herr admitted later that he invented characters and scenes; this classic of reportage is partly fiction. Its rock-and-roll prose makes combat seductive in ways the moralizing never undoes, and the Vietnamese appear mostly as scenery in their own country. War as bad acid trip felt revelatory in 1977. It also flatters the exact adrenaline it claims to indict.
Non-Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
