4 books
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1. The 13th Valley
A work that has served as a literary cornerstone for the Vietnam generation, The 13th Valley follows the strange and terrifying Vietnam combat experiences of James Chelini, a telephone-systems installer who finds himself an infantryman in territory controlled by the North Vietnamese Army. Spiraling deeper and deeper into a world of conflict and darkness, this harrowing account of Chelini's plunge and immersion into jungle warfare traces his evolution from a semipacifist to an all-out warmonger. The seminal novel on the Vietnam experience, The 13th Valley is a classic that illuminates the war in Southeast Asia like no other book.
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2. Carry Me Home
In this powerful and poignant epic, Del Vecchio transports the soldiers of the Viet Nam experience to their final battlefield—the home front. High Meadow Farm, in the fertile hill country of central Pennsylvania, would be their salvation. In Viet Nam they had fought side by side, brothers in arms. Now in the face of personal tragedy and bureaucratic deception, they would create a more enduring allegiance, an alliance of the spirit and the soil. Carry Me Home is the remarkable story of their struggle to find each other and themselves, a saga spanning fifteen years—fifteen years lost in a wilderness called America. In its scope, breadth, and brilliance, Carry Me Home is much more than a novel about Viet Nam and Viet Nam veterans. It is a testament to history and hope, to hometowns and homecomings, to love and loss, to faith and family. It is a novel about two decades in our collective lives and the cleansing of our spirit—an inspiring and unforgettable novel about America itself. “In this...final installment of his trilogy about America's war in Southeast Asia (The 13th Valley; For the Sake of All Living Things), Del Vecchio focuses on veterans who returned home in the late '60s only to find themselves viewed largely as lepers...the overall purpose of his powerful proletarian art demands such detail to underscore his characters' pain and, for a few, uplifting recovery.” —Publishers Weekly “Carry Me Home completes a trilogy begun by The 13th Valley, and deals, much like James Jones' Some Came Running, with veterans trying to adapt to civilian life....in the end they gain a frightening power from Del Vecchio's accretion of utterly authentic detail. And Wapinski, at least, comes to a hard-earned redemption through the example of one fine old man and a beautiful, communitarian idea.” —Booklist “Arresting, searing and shattering...the most eloquent novel ever to examine the American Viet Nam veteran and his return home to a nation that had failed him.” —International Review
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3. For the Sake of All Living Things
John M. Del Vecchio’s searing bestseller The 13th Valley was praised as one of the most powerful works of literature to emerge from the Viet Nam experience. Now back in print comes an even more stunning achievement: For the Sake of All Living Things. In this unflinching and unforgettable epic saga, Del Vecchio re-creates the violence and horror of Viet Nam’s parallel tragedy—the Cambodian h*******t—as seen through the eyes of a Cambodian family and the American adviser whose fate becomes irrevocable linked with theirs. A sweeping tale of savagery and survival that pits parents and children against both the North Vietnamese invaders and the unprecedented ferocity of the Khmer Rouge, For the Sake of All Living Things is an unrelenting, ultimately inspiring chronicle of conflict and redemption in the killing fields. “Harrowing….[Del Vecchio] has added another memorable book to the literature of the Southeast Asian conflict.” —The New York Times Book Review “Nothing can prepare the reader for the experience of this book.” —The Dallas Morning News “Exhaustive, emotionally powerful….Del Vecchio brilliantly portrays the labyrinthine tragedies that led to the 1970s cataclysm in Cambodia.” —Publishers Weekly
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4. Demise
AUTHOR'S PREFERRED EDITION This is the story of two young men, one white, one black, who grew up in the 1960s, who were best friends—their high school’s Salt ‘n’ Pepper running backs. One went to Vietnam, the other avoided the draft. Their worlds begin to disintegrate when a freak accident disrupts the peaceful Connecticut town where they have settled. As 50-year-old corporate executives, one loathes his job and finds himself increasingly estranged from his family and community. Events force them closer together, yet careers, families, and tragedies which revolve about decisions made three decades earlier tear them apart. Del Vecchio has created a beautiful, penetrating novel of men struggling with their demons, a town struggling with tragedy, and families struggling to stay together. “...a stunning and insightful masterpiece, as timely as tomorrow’s news.” —Al Santoli, author of Everything We Had