Harvest of a Quiet Eye

As if in some kind of karmic joke, newly assigned Peace Corps volunteer and Vietnam War opponent, Malcolm Jossogne, arrives in Udon, Thailand in 1970 to find this once quiet, upcountry town has been transformed into a vulgar shantytown of massage parlors, strip joints, bowling alleys, and neon-lit nights by the presence of thousands of American soldiers. Streets that once carried bicycles are now choked with caravans of honking blue taxis only American soldiers can afford. Bars and brothels outnumber Buddhist temples. Where saffron-robed Theravada monks once padded in silent contemplation, Led Zeppelin and Three Dog Night now blast from the doorways of GI bars, and drunken Americans on all fours vomit into the gutters. Grotesque imitation of American fashion, customs, and vices induces a cultural schizophrenia. Nearer to Hanoi than Bangkok, Udon is strategic to the U.S. military as it prosecutes the war. But it's also here that Malcolm is to meet a Thai girl, "the other half of his flesh."