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In 1966, just as the American military buildup in Vietnam was going intooverdrive, a working-class 22-year-old from Chicago was drafted into the army.Larry Heinemann serviced one year of combat duty with the 25th InfantryDivision, most of it in the vicinity of Cu Chi. It was the most horrific andconsequential year of his life, and it served as the raw material for his twoclassic war novels, Close Quarters and Paco's Story.
The memoir chronicles a 1992 railway journey Heinemann took from Hanoi to HoChi Minh City as the guest of the Vietnam Writers' Association. Along the way,he encounters Vietnamese war veterans and views sites that trigger powerful memories.His journey ends with a crawl through the tunnels of Cu Chi and a climb up thesacred mountain that is this book's namesake. A work of mourning and an act ofreconciliation, Black Virgin Mountain considers the psychic costs of awar that is still taking its toll.
