Soldier in Paradise Book

Mort's compelling first novel embodies both the Vietnam combat experience and the sad aftermath for those who underwent it. The novel alternates between the "stateside" chapters after the war and the Vietnam chapters dramatizing the war, creating a tension back and forth in time as well as geography. Through a wry first person narrative readers come to know the bookish, reluctant soldier and his comrades in the jungle and the psychologically wounded man who slowly climbs back into a productive life.