Reviews

"Walking Point is by far the best commentary I have read on the literature of the Vietnam War: lucid, thoughtful, and full of fresh insights, not only on the writing to come out of the War, but on the War itself. Too often, Vietnam War fiction and memoir has been viewed as a dark and exotic tributary of the American literary mainstream. Thomas Myers performs an invaluable service in showing that its headwaters begin with Crane, Melville, and Cooper,
and that it is as much a part of our national literature as the works of Heller, Mailer, Jones, and Hemingway."--Philip Caputo
"Intelligent, well cited and wide-ranging."--Journal of American Studies
"This book belongs in all research-level literature collections."--Library Journal
"The critical method gives the analyses breadth and depth, and the extensive notes and secondary references provide resonance and authority to readings that could stand firmly without the assistance of either....Walking Point is well conceived and deftly written, a major contribution to both literary criticism and American intellectual history."--American Literature
"Reaches far beyond its topicality of subject to become one of the most astute analyses of not just fiction abou the war but of the larger transformation that has come to characterize the style of writing other critics have labored to call postmodern, poststructural, innovative, or antitraditional....Stands as one of the best self-contained treatments of what distinguishes post-modern American fiction."--American Literary Scholarship
"Walking Point is by far the best commentary I have read on the literature of the Vietnam War: lucid, thoughtful, and full of fresh insights, not only on the writing to come out of the War, but on the War itself. Too often, Vietnam War fiction and memoir has been viewed as a dark and exotic tributary of the American literary mainstream. Thomas Myers performs an invaluable service in showing that its headwaters begin with Crane, Melville, and Cooper,
and that it is as much a part of our national literature as the works of Heller, Mailer, Jones, and Hemingway."--Philip Caputo
"Intelligent, well cited and wide-ranging."--Journal of American Studies
"This book belongs in all research-level literature collections."--Library Journal
"The critical method gives the analyses breadth and depth, and the extensive notes and secondary references provide resonance and authority to readings that could stand firmly without the assistance of either....Walking Point is well conceived and deftly written, a major contribution to both literary criticism and American intellectual history."--American Literature
"Reaches far beyond its topicality of subject to become one of the most astute analyses of not just fiction abou the war but of the larger transformation that has come to characterize the style of writing other critics have labored to call postmodern, poststructural, innovative, or antitraditional....Stands as one of the best self-contained treatments of what distinguishes post-modern American fiction."--American Literary Scholarship
"Myers has produced, without question, the best work on Vietnam War literature to date. Myers's selection of works for extended anaysis is excellent, and dozens more are treated peripherally."--South Central Review
"[Myers's] analysis of the discrepancy that existed between mythic idealism and sordid reality in the Vietnamese conflict as compared with earlier wars, and its effect on the American conscience, is especially interesting....This book belongs in all research-level literature collections."--Library Journal