In Pharaoh's Army

Finalist for the National Book Award 

This is Wolff’s brilliant and unflinching account of his tour in Vietnam, expressed with the immediacy of autobiography and the art of his best fiction. Traversing an arc that leads from paratrooper’s jump school to the carnage of the Tet offensive, recreating a war where survival depends less on skill than it does on blind luck and the ability to look inoffensive, In Pharaoh’s Army is a war memoir in the tradition of George Orwell and Michael Herr.

“Painful . . . powerful . . . brilliant. The book is remarkable in its language, which is as supple and distilled as any contemporary American writer’s; in its economy; in its structure; and, most of all, in its candor, humor and generosity of spirit. . . .  By every measure of feeling and technique, it’s a magnificent and sobering achievement.” —Chicago Tribune

“A book about shattered illusions and personal loss, about survival and healing and growth. Told in Wolff’s superbly intimate, ironic voice, it represents the latest chapter in an unforgettable personal history. . . . A rich and quietly commanding autobiography from a master of the form.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer