By focusing on representations of combat and life in the battlefield, first-generation Vietnam literature strove to give testimony, to write history. Later writings reveal the war's deep and far-reaching impact on the American psyche. This text is divided in reflecting these two stages.

The imaginative literature of the Vietnam War participates-both overtly and covertly-in a struggle for national memory. First-generation Vietnam War literature, focusing on representations of combat and life in the battlefield, strove to give testimony, to write history. Later writings, in their range of genre and style, investigate and interrogate the very meaning of war. To reflect these two stages, Philip Jason divides his newest book of literary criticism into two sections: acts and shadows. In Acts, Jason provides formal and cultural readings of combat narratives-by such authors as James Webb, Larry Heinemann, and Joe Haldeman-and explores the meaning of authenticity as applied to Vietnam War texts. Shadows looks both forward and backward from the combat zone, challenging the parameters of what we define as Vietnam War literature.

Part I: acts
vision and tradition
sexism and racism in Vietnam War fiction
Joe Haldeman and the wounds of war
Vietnam as noise. Part II: shadows
Vietnamese in America
hard-boiled Nam I - the Vietnam War in detective fiction
hard-boiled Nam II - James Lee Burke's "Dane Robicheaux"
Vietnam War themes in Korean War literature
going back to go forward. Part III: coda - teaching war literature
teaching the literature of war or teaching the war through literature
representations of war in ethics education.