Author Description

Pender Hartwell, an infantryman sickened by the war, deserts to the North Vietnamese. In Hanoi he is put in the hands of a literary-inclined intelligence officer, who teaches him to speak Vietnamese. Together they read the chief work of Vietnamese literature, the epic love poem, The Tale of Kieu, while Pender helps Mr. Chau translate captured American documents, mostly ones of no significance because the North Vietnamese never trust Pender. Pender finds himself attracted to a girl who walks along the red dirt road before the house every day, but being kept under guard he never has the opportunity to speak to her. Long after the war is over Mr. Chau falls out of favor and disappears, and the North Vietnamese kick Pender out, so he returns to Mississippi to claim his decaying ante-bellum family home. No one in the tiny community of Egypt Ridge is happy with Pender s presence, particularly the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy, for he is the recipient of a dishonorable discharge and has been stripped of his medals. Still, he starts to court his old girl friend, Miranda, wanting to fall in love with her but unsure whether he can. Having memorized much of The Tale of Kieu he uses the poem to call up memories of the girl on the red road, and he s consequently caught between the love he wants for Miranda and his idealized love for a girl he s seen only from a distance. With the help of two Montagnard refugees he repairs the family home and struggles against attempts, both by persuasion and by violence, to drive him out of the house and out of Mississippi.