Vietnam from a Texas POV - Bibliography

LITERATURE OF THE WAR: MEMOIRS, POETRY, AND FICTION:

Darrell Bain. MEDICS WILD. (2001) A "humorous" Vietnam novel by a veteran from East Texas and author of numerous science fiction novels.
 

Roy Benavidez. The Three Wars of Roy Benavidez (1998) and Medal of Honor. (1995) Memoirs by the Congressional Medal of Honor winner from South Texas.
 

William Broyles, Jr. Brothers in Arms. (1986) Account by a former Marine Lieutenant and founding Texas Monthly editor who returned to Vietnam in the early 1980s. Reprinted in 1996 by the University of Texas Press as part of its Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series.
 

Tom Campbell. The Old Man's Trail. (1995) An action novel about the Vietcong by a Dallas native and long-time Marine officer.
 

Daniel Cano Shifting Loyalties. (1995) Glimpses of Mexican Americans from Texas in this sweeping novel that follows the lives of five young Chicanos before, during, and after the Vietnam War.
 

Charles H. Coleman. Sergeant Back Again (1980) An ironic Vietnam-tinged novel set in the psychiatric ward of the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio.
 

James Crumley. One to Count Cadence. (1969) This debut novel by the South Texas native and world-class detective novelist is considered a modern classic of war literature.
 

Terry Farish. Flower Shadows. (1992) A novel about a young woman from Texas sent to run Red Cross mobile recreation units in Vietnam.

Marshall Harrison. Cadillac Flight (1991) and The Delta. (1992) Adventure novel written by a Texan who served three terms in Vietnam as an Air Force officer. Author was raised in Dallas and currently resides in Lubbock.
 

Layne Heath. CW2 (1990) and Blue Deep. (1993) Adventure novels by a Texan who served two tours as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
 

John H. Irsfeld. Radio Elvis and Other Stories. (2002) Includes stories about Vietnam drawn from the life experience of this Mineral Wells, Texas native.
 

Andrew Jolly. A Time of Soldiers (1976) Epic novel follows a Texas family of soldiers from the Mexican Revolution through the Vietnam War.
 

John P. McAfee: Slow Walk in a Sad Rain (2002) and On Rims of Empty Moons. (1997) Critically-acclaimed "black comedies" by a Texas native who served as a Green Beret captain in Vietnam.
 

Walter McDonald. A Band of Brothers: Stories from Vietnam (1989) McDonald is a former Air Force pilot and Vietnam veteran who has been Texas' Poet Laureate and Director of the Creative Writing program at Texas Tech University.
 

Walter McDonald. His award-winning poetry collections include: After the Noise of Saigon, Night Landings, The Flying Dutchman, Caliban in Blue.
 

Joe D. Rodríguez. Oddsplayer (1989). Memories of racism in Texas fuel this author's account of his experiences in Vietnam.
 

Michael W. Rodriguez. Humidity Moon: Short Stories of the Vietnam War. (1998) Nuanced, emotionally-charged portraits of a Marine "grunt" in Vietnam.
 

James N. Rowe. Five Years to Freedom. (1971) Memoir of a Texas Green Beret Lieutenant who was captured by the Viet Cong in 1963 and eventually escaped. Rowe returned to the U.S. and became active in pro-war efforts.
 

Joanna Scott. Charlie and the Children. (1997) A Texas POW gradually loses his grip on reality and comes to believe that one of his captors is his lost son.
 

Estela Portillo Trambley "Village," in Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories. (1993) Rico, a young Chicano in Vietnam, rebels when he realizes that a Viet Cong village his unit is about to attack is "no different than Valverde, the barrio where he had grown up."
 

Charley Trujillo. Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam. (1990) Accounts of Mexican American veterans, including some from Texas.
 

Diego Vazquez, Jr. Growing Through the Ugly. (1997) Recounts the life of a young Chicano soldier from El Paso who is killed in Vietnam-from the point of view of the dead soldier.

 

 

JOURNALISTIC ENCOUNTERS: THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS

Gordon Baxter. 13/13 Vietnam: Search & Destroy. (1967) A photographic essay by a well-known Texas journalist of the time and a self-described "right winger."
 

Randy Lee Eickhoff. A Hand to Execute. (1987) Adventure novel by a Vietnam veteran from El Paso that features a jaded newspaperman in Saigon.
 

Robert Flynn. A Personal War in Vietnam. (1989) A clear-eyed chronicle by a Korean War veteran who journeyed to Vietnam in 1970 as a college professor-turned-war correspondent.
 

Robert Flynn. The Last Klick. (1994) Flynn's earlier reportage in Vietnam formed the basis for this novel. Flynn's short story collection Living with the Hyenas (1995) also contains portraits of Vietnam.
 

Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway. We were Soldiers Once...And Young (1992) Account of the first major combat between U.S. soldiers and the Viet Cong. Joseph Galloway, a Refugio, Texas native, was the only journalist on the scene.
 

Bud Shrake. Night Never Falls. (1987) Novel about a swashbuckling newspaperman who finds himself trapped with the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

 

 

The HOMEFRONT: TEXANS RESPOND TO THE WAR: 

Aztlán and Vietnam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War. Edited by George Mariscal. (1999) contains works by Texas writers including: Magdaleno Avila (Juan Valdez), Gregg Barrios, Barbara Renaud González, Rolando Hinojosa, Michael W. Rodriguez, Carmen Tafolla, Tino Villanueva
 

Sarah Bird. The Yokota Officer's Club. (2001) Acclaimed novel from the Austin resident told from the point of view of an anti-war military brat stationed overseas with her family during the Vietnam War.
 

Mark Busby. Fort Benning Blues. (2001) An ambivalent Texan draftee undergoes officer training while news of the My Lai massacre comes to light and anti-war sentiment erupts.
 

Norma Elia Cantú. Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera. (1995) Memoir from the Laredo writer that describes growing up with her brother, Tino, and his eventual death in Vietnam.
 

Al Dewlen. Next of Kin (1977) Novel based on the personal experience of this noted Texas author-who lost his only son in Vietnam.
 

Cecilio García-Camarillo. Selected Poetry. (2000) Chicano poet from Laredo who decried "the gringo's war in Vietnam" in his verse.
 

R.S. Gwynn. "Body Bags." In Texas Poets in Concert: A Quartet. (1990) Effects of the Vietnam War on the poet's childhood acquaintances.

William Humphrey. The Horse Latitudes. Unpublished anti-war novel by this noted Texas writer, who participated in the 1971 march on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam war.
 

Daryl Janes (ed.) No Apologies: Texas Radicals Celebrate the '60s. (1992) Accounts of Texans who protested against the war.
 

Suzan-Lori Parks. Getting Mother's Body. (2003) This first novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist is set in West Texas in the 1960s. Lori-Parks herself lived in West Texas while her father was serving in Vietnam.
 

Norman Mailer. Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967) This parable about violence-prone Texas hunters by one of America's leading literary figures places the blame for Vietnam on "Texan" attitudes.
 

Howard McCord. Ovens: Poems against the War and Tyranny (1971). This poet from El Paso served in the US Navy from 1951 to 1953 and later voiced his opposition to Vietnam in his work.
 

Reginald McKnight. The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas: Stories. (1992) A fiercely memorable portrait of Texas racism-from the point of view of an African-American elementary student whose father is serving in Vietnam.
 

Larry McMurtry. Moving On (1970) The Vietnam War and the counterculture it spawned hover behind the Texans in this novel.
 

Paul Scott Malone. Memorial Day and Other Stories. (2000) Vietnam-laced short stories, set in Texas.
 

Robert Pardun. Prairie Radical: A Journey Through the Sixties. (2001) Memoir of an Austin-based anti-war activist.

 

 

LEGACIES: Vietnamese in Texas and Vietnam Veterans in Texas Fiction

Austin Bay. The Coyote Cried Twice. (1985) Mystery novel set in the brush country of South Texas with a Vietnam vet protagonist.
 

Patt Carr. Bluebirds (in Careless Weeds: Six Texas Novellas, edited by Tom Pilkington, 1993) Texas woman married to a troubled Vietnam veteran.
 

Sue Chance. Stoneflowers (1994) A West Texas sculptor and a Vietnam veteran learn to help each other cope with their separate sufferings.
 

James Crumley. Bordersnakes (1996) The Mexican Tree Duck. (1993) Vietnam vet C.W. Sughrue stars in this series from the internationally-acclaimed crime novelist from Texas.
 

Mary Gardner. Boat people. (1995) A novel focusing on the newly-arrived Vietnamese community along the Texas Gulf Coast.
 

Gaylord Dold. Bay of Sorrows. (1995.) Tension between Vietnamese immigrants and Texans boil over in this mystery novel.
 

Genaro Gonzalez. "Home of the Brave," in Only Sons. (1991) A wounded Vietnam veteran returns to South Texas in this short story. A Vietnam veteran also makes an appearance in Gonzalez's novel Rainbow's End. (1989)
 

A.C. Greene. "Like," in The Highland Park Woman. (1983) A lonely, alienated Texas Vietnam veteran reflects on women in this short story.
 

Ken Grissom. Drop-Off. (1988) A Galveston-based Vietnam veteran stars in this mystery series.
 

William Hauptman. The Storm Season. (1992) A thoughtful Vietnam vet befriends a North Texas storm chaser in this novel. Reprinted in 2001 by the University of Texas Press as part of its Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series.
 

Joe Lansdale. The Two-Bear Mambo (1995) A gay black Vietnam veteran teams up with a white heterosexual buddy to solve crimes in the Piney Woods.
 

James McLure. Lone Star. (in Texas Plays, edited by William B. Martin, 1990) A veteran has difficulty adjusting to life in his hometown following the war.
 

Charlie McDade. The Gulf (1986) Recently-arrived Vietnamese refugees tangle with hostile Texans while a local Vietnam veteran comes to terms with his past.
 

Terry Pringle. Tycoon. (1990) A Texas Vietnam veteran comes of age amidst the oil boom of the 1970s in this novel.

Rick Riordan. Cold Springs. (2003) A survivalist school in Texas run by a Vietnam veteran is at the center of this mystery by the Edgar Award-winning San Antonio mystery novelist.
 

Sandra Scofield. Beyond Observing. (1991) This novel details the troubled relationship between a west Texas woman and her Vietnam veteran husband.
 

Howard Swindle. Jitter Joint (1999) and Doin' Dirty. (2000) Author is a Vietnam vet whose Dallas-based mystery novels feature a veteran/alcoholic protagonist.
 

Lan Tran. "Lone Stars," in the Summer 2002 issue of the Chattahoocee Review. Essay about a Vietnamese-Texan upbringing in the 1970s by the performance artist and creator of the one-woman show, "How to Unravel Your Family."
 

Robert James Waller. Border Music. (1995) A Texas Vietnam veteran rescues a Minnesota stripper and takes her to his ranch.
 

Mary Willis Walker. Under the Beetle's Cellar. (1995) A Vietnam vet becomes an unlikely hero as schoolchildren are held hostage by an apocalyptic cult.
 

Thomas Zigal. "Orphan of the West," in South by Southwest: 24 Stories from Modern Texas, edited by Don Graham (1986). A Vietnamese orphan is adopted by a cowboy movie star who has retired to Texas.

 
 

TELEVISION AND FILM:

Alamo Bay (1985) Louis Malle film focuses on a Vietnam veteran angered by Vietnamese immigrants moving into the fishing industry in a Texas Gulf Coast town.
 

China Beach (1988-1991) Emmy Award-winning television series created by William Broyles Jr. and John Sacret Young focuses on the experiences of women in Vietnam.
 

Fandango (1985) The Vietnam War looms as five UT-Austin students embark on a final road trip across the Mexican Border. Kevin Costner stars.
 

Little Boy Blue (1997) Vietnam vet heads a dysfunctional family in the rural Texas panhandle.
 

Phantom Soldiers (1987) A Texas Ranger goes to Vietnam to find his MIA brother.
 

Tender Mercies (1983) Alchoholic former country singer makes friends with a young widow whose husband was killed in Vietnam. Robert Duvall won an Oscar for Best Actor and Horton Foote won for Best Screenplay.
 

Vietnam, Texas (1990) Clashes in the Texas fishing industry between newly arrived Vietnamese immigrants and more established Texans are central to this gritty drama.
 

The War at Home (1996) Emilio Estevez directs and stars in this movie about a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran who returns to Texas. Filmed in San Marcos and Austin.
 

We Were Soldiers (2002) This film starring Mel Gibson is based on the book by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway (see above).
 

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This bibliography was prepared by Steve Davis, Assistant Curator of the Southwestern Writers Collection, along with Dr. Mark Busby, Director of the Southwest Regional Humanities Center at Texas State University-San Marcos. We welcome additons and corrections. Please send updates to Steve Davis

 

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