Dreams, Vietnam

This book is a rare gift. Using a spare style that startles with its directness, Marc Levy transforms the dreams of almost forty years into what often feel like surreal prose poems, with disturbingly realistic details of war juxtaposed with domestic details of childhood and civilian life. One minute the dreamer is in Vietnam, the next he’s in a childhood park; he’s a school child, an adolescent, but simultaneously a soldier. His brother, his parents, his dog appear; familiar objects-an umbrella, a small balsa wood plane-create disconcerting contrasts with weapons of war. There’s emotional and moral complexity here: the dreamer stabs someone and dresses his wounds; he kills and he dies; he feels shame and rage, and he weeps. Profound thanks to Marc Levy for sharing these powerful, intimate dreams, reminding us: how deep are the wounds of war. Martha Collins, editor-a-large, Field