The Ambivalent Heart

These poetic and moving spiritual re­flections, born of the author's experi­ences as an American chaplain in Viet­nam, are built on the themes of the ambivalent nature of war and the uni­versal elements in the lives of the peo­ple, Vietnamese and Americans, who live, fight, suffer and die there. It is also the story of a modern man's search for a God who is consistent with the realities of human misery, hope, grief, death, Coke and the "splurge now, pay later" way of living that is now part of everyman's heritage. The author writes, "As hateful as the war is there is, in fact, a unity of all thought that brings everyone before the same God without 'bother business words.' Viet­nam is the mirror of those things we decry most loudly about ourselves."From the "everyday" incidents of life in a wartorn country-an American soldier's conflicts with his family back home, a Vietnamese boy forced by his family to marry before he joins the army, a young girl arriving at woman­hood with a profound acceptance of death and despair while remaining girlish and free-the author has cre­ated a work of both spiritual depth and poetic beauty.