"An unremittingly honest look into the black pit of war.Larry Heinemann's voice is clear
and true."New York Times

"The best work of fiction to come out of the Vietnam War."Houston Chronicle

"Close Quarters can stand with the finest Vietnam writing, fact or fiction."Chicago Tribune

From the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of
the Vietnam conflict: Philip Caputo, Tim O'Brien, and Gustav Hasford.

In the stripped-down, unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells his story of the war.
Straight from high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, he enters a world of mud and heat, blood
and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom
that awaits every soldier. In the tradition of The Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line,
Close Quarters is the harrowing story of how a decent kid from Chicago endures an extraordinary trial
and returns profoundly altered to a world on the threshold of change.

Larry Heinemann, a Vietnam vet, is the author of Paco's Story, the National Book Award-winning novel. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.