From the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of the Vietnam conflict: Philip Caputo, Tim O’Brien, and Gustav Hasford.

In the stripped-down unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells the story of his war. Straight from high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, he enters a world of mud and heat, blood and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom that awaits every soldier. In the tradition of The Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line, Close Quarters is the harrowing story of how a decent kid from Chicago endures an extraordinary trial and returns profoundly altered to a world on the threshold of change.

Larry Heinemann, a Vietnam vet, is the author of Paco's Story, the National Book Award-winning novel. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.