Truth

TRUTH—FOR BEGINNERS

Somewhat late in the game, Hollywood is beginning to try to come to grips with the effects of Vietnam. Coming Home is meant to illustrate the impact of that war on three groups of people: paraplegic or otherwise scarred veterans; average, gung-ho Americans, who faced disappointments over there and back home; and wives who were left behind. Roughly, it is the story of the emancipation of a typical, sheltered officer’s wife, who, while her husband is having a hard time of it in Vietnam, starts doing volunteer work in a Los Angeles veterans’ hospital, gets involved with a wonderfully virile paraplegic pacifist, and begins to see, in bed, both colored lights and the light. When her husband returns, disillusioned but still hawkish (also male chauvinist pig), she reluctantly but hopefully chooses him over her lover; but the by now highly neuroticized husband, after threatening murder, commits self-sacrifice.

JS

About the Author

John Simon

TRUTH—FOR BEGINNERS

Somewhat late in the game, Hollywood is beginning to try to come to grips with the effects of Vietnam. Coming Home is meant to illustrate the impact of that war on three groups of people: paraplegic or otherwise scarred veterans; average, gung-ho Americans, who faced disappointments over there and back home; and wives who were left behind. Roughly, it is the story of the emancipation of a typical, sheltered officer’s wife, who, while her husband is having a hard time of it in Vietnam, starts doing volunteer work in a Los Angeles veterans’ hospital, gets involved with a wonderfully virile paraplegic pacifist, and begins to see, in bed, both colored lights and the light. When her husband returns, disillusioned but still hawkish (also male chauvinist pig), she reluctantly but hopefully chooses him over her lover; but the by now highly neuroticized husband, after threatening murder, commits self-sacrifice.