Dirty Work

Braiden Chaney has no arms or legs. Walter James has no face. They lost them in Vietnam, along with other, more vital parts of themselves. Now, twenty-two years later, these two Mississippians -- one black, the other white -- lie in adjoining beds in a V.A. hospital. In the course of one long night they tell each other how they came to be what they are and what they can only dream of becoming. Their stories, recounted in voices as distinct and indelible as those of Faulkner, add up to the story of the war itself, and make Dirty Work the most devastating novel of its kind since Dalton Trumbo's Johnny got his gun.