Best known as one of the most prolific and celebrated of American short story writers, Andre Dubus did write one controversial novel, originally published in 1967: The Lieutenant. Now, over 50 years later, this sleek reprint, with an introduction by Dubus's son, the critically acclaimed novelist Andre Dubus III (Such Kindness), invites readers to revisit what is a raw, thought-provoking, and searing portrait of a group of Marines during the Vietnam War.
Lieutenant Dan Tierney serves aboard the Vanguard, an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Long dedicated to life as a Marine, Tierney finds himself in a bureaucratic nightmare. A sensitive young private, Ted Freeman, has been implicated in an incident that reveals long-standing abuse aboard the claustrophobic vessel. But when Tierney attempts to discipline the perpetrators, higher-ups institute a series of protocols that document both Freeman and the perpetrators as homosexuals. As Tierney fights to wipe such an accusation from Freeman's record, tensions boil over between Freeman and his abusers.
Dubus's unmatched clarity and unwavering attention to the taboo--in this case, homosexuality and sexual assault in the military--proves vital to this equally absorbing and disturbing portrait of military culture. Readers, alongside Tierney, are trapped in a complex system of betrayals, unwavering regulations, and conflicting moral codes that are, by turns, startlingly sobering and chillingly nightmarish. But the unexpected moments of Tierney and Freeman's fragility beat at the novel's core, and the story's real tension comes from the juxtaposition of the power of these characters' vulnerabilities and the harsh system that entraps them. In The Lieutenant, Dubus reveals the contradictions of conventional masculinity that lie at the heart of what could otherwise be a more conventional thriller. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor