| Title: |
The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up |
 |
| Author: |
Charles Nelson |
| Published by: |
William Morrow, 1981 |
| ISBN: |
0-688-00644-2 [hardcover, 420 pages] |
The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up is the story
of Kurt Strom's year in Vietnam. Kurt is a medic -- tall,blond, handsome,
and gay, with a gift for seducing heterosexual men and, it seems, an irresistible
urge to use his gift.
Kurt's story is told through his letters home to four correspondents:
his hip grandmother; outcast cousin Chloe; Arch, a straight buddy who doesn't
know Kurt is gay; and Paul, Kurt's closest friend. Each correspondent sees
a slightly different Kurt, but only the reader knows the full dimension
of his vibrant personality. Randy and raunchy, Kurt is as willing to exploit
his fellow marines in his way as the pentagon is in theirs. A devastatingly
witty observer of the social scene, he can be brutally bitchy about his
comrades, but is never more caustic than when reporting about himself.
Through Kurt we see Vietnam and the military as they've never been seen
before.
