Where the Rivers Ran Backward: Revised Version With Updates by the Author

Where the Rivers Ran Backward captures the experience of the Vietnam War from the red line through the induction station to the muddy yellow swirl of the river that flows through the jungle, from the Vietcong tracers that pierce the darkness to the black wall that records the names of the missing and the dead. Bill Merritt writes of the wars strange, almost intoxicating beauty: of a yellow river, complicated inlays of green and silver shimmering on its banks through the morning fog; of gunships firing in the night, sending bright neon threads streaming across the sky. Comic, then suddenly reflective, lyrical then quickly matter-of-fact, Where the Rivers Ran Backward describes a time and place in which effort seemed only to reinforce constancy, in which a river carried all its country's sorrows each day to the sea, and then ran backward, returning them on the tide, forever. Where the Rivers Ran Backward clearly has the power and artistic integrity of lasting literature. Of its many virtues, the most important, I think, is the force and Authenticity of the author's voice. Never false, never flagging, it is the voice of a man who has been to war and returned with something important to say . . . . Extraordinary in almost all respects. - TIM O'BRIEN A fascinating mosaic of reminiscences about Mr Merritt's fellow soldiers, their weapons, their training, their travails and their war . . . . A well-crafted evocation of the tragic zaniness of wars and the quiet perseverance of the men who fight them. - THE NEW YORK TIMES Merritt's] subtle technique is chilling. It captures the war's incoherence and the author's jumbled emotions toward it. - NEWSDAY Highly recommended. - LIBRARY JOURNAL A gutsy and finely accurate portrayal of a grunt's life in that most divisive Asian war. - KIRKUS Comparison with the Red Badge of Courage would be falling on this book like mortar wounds if it had been issued by a commercial press. - WEST PALM BEACH POST A powerful book . . . the author's unerring eye for significant detail and sharp ear for dialog - COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE TELEGRAPH Merritt's writing is just short of superb. - EL PASO HERALD POST A stunning, moving performance. - GREENWICH, CT, TIME