Books in Brief

Which Ones Are the Enemy?, by George Garrett (Little, Brown, $3.95). Our wars being over for the time, here is a post-novel of the American Occupation Army in Trieste, an army of fakes, cretins, degenerates and blackmarketeers. What is more, it is pretty much true. The first-person narrator is Private John Riche, whose IQ cannot be half that of the author. It is curious that the hero of almost all our recent military novels is a Neanderthal type, a yard bird with as much bad time as good behind him. Having said that, I must admit that George Garrett has written a good book, one that I disliked and yet at the end was much moved by. As a former sergeant in the Occupation Army, he knows what he is talking about, and he knows how to evoke both the army atmosphere and the Adriatic environment. He has, incidentally, recorded all the military fripperies, the painted pot-helmets, the garish silk neckerchiefs, etc., that our misguided army minds overseas have conceived of as smart If you don’t like the picture, don’t blame the author.

F. RUSSELL

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Which Ones Are the Enemy?, by George Garrett (Little, Brown, $3.95). Our wars being over for the time, here is a post-novel of the American Occupation Army in Trieste, an army of fakes, cretins, degenerates and blackmarketeers. What is more, it is pretty much true. The first-person narrator is Private John Riche, whose IQ cannot be half that of the author. It is curious that the hero of almost all our recent military novels is a Neanderthal type, a yard bird with as much bad time as good behind him. Having said that, I must admit that George Garrett has written a good book, one that I disliked and yet at the end was much moved by. As a former sergeant in the Occupation Army, he knows what he is talking about, and he knows how to evoke both the army atmosphere and the Adriatic environment. He has, incidentally, recorded all the military fripperies, the painted pot-helmets, the garish silk neckerchiefs, etc., that our misguided army minds overseas have conceived of as smart If you don’t like the picture, don’t blame the author.

F. RUSSELL