Just Another Day in Vietnam (urspr publ 2019; utgåvan 2019)

This is innovative fiction. Nightingale was there for the battle, for after-action intelligence gathering. Yet, he chose to write a novel instead of a history or memoir. This gives him freedom to write descriptively, and oh so good it is. Particularly the natural setting. Lush. Sort of like nature writing + war - a strange yet effective mixture, I've never read anything quite like it. The main character is the jungle. He self-published in 2015 (why?). Then it took off on Amazon, and a commercial publisher released it in 2019. Audiobook followed. The zen-like attention to detail sets it apart, small things writers don't normally focus on. He describes body sweat in so many ways, not in one place it keeps re-appearing in different contexts. Or the shape of the trees, the root system, the character of the mud. It goes on, the details. It grounds you there. Technicolor Vietnam. ( )