Review of Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard

If you were born in the 21st century, it's likely you do not know the author Lucius Shepard. The flood of fiction the past couple decades has virtually washed away the chance for good but lesser known writers of just thirty, forty years ago to be discovered today. Different readers will have different opinions, but certainly Shepard's The Jaguar Hunter (1987) and the book reviewed here, Life During Wartime (1987), are to be considered among the tip-top best fantastika of the 80s. They may even have a monopoly on '87?

And the time period is important. An extremely brief history lesson, the 80s were a time when America was doing it's best not to create another Vietnam in Central America. Its military forces were secretly, and less secretly, deployed throughout the region in an attempt to “keep the commies out” lest the Soviet Union win the Cold War. Shepard took this scene, added a drop or two of something speculative, and wrote a couple pieces of fiction, including “Salvador” and “R&R”, the latter of which was expanded into Life During Wartime.

Life During Wartime is the story of the American soldier David Mingolla. A less naive version of Charlie Sheen in Platoon, Mingolla nevertheless tries to do the right thing—to be patriotic, and above all, to stay alive. He drinks beers with his mates in ramshackle Guatemalan bars, witnesses the horrors of war in the jungles, and attempts to find some personal truth through it all. He meets an odd woman in a cantina one day, a woman who claims to be psychic. As their relationship develops, a new dynamic is added to his already swirling thoughts: is she secretly a pacifist trying to get him to go AWOL to Panama?

As opposed to the novella “R&R” on which it's based, Life During Wartime has a positively Philip Dickian spin to its proceedings. Yes, psi powers and conspiracy theories. Mingolla's war experiences increasingly strain credibility as he gets deeper into his relationship with the woman and closer to the cause of the war he is fighting in.

But it's the climactic scene, one which breathes the air of “over the top”, that Shepard shifts discussion on Life During Wartime from cheesy sf to something better resembling war commentary. Rather than some of the cheesy stuff Dick came up with, the story wants to be looked at alongside Apocalypse Now, perhaps a cousin. While Conrad's Heart of Darkness (on which Apocalyspe Now is based), remains the more human of the two pieces of literature, Shepard strikes an appropriate tone such that the the absurdity, the gaudiness of the climax becomes a statement the reader can turn over for themselves.

In the end, I would consider “R&R” and “Salvador” superior to Life During Wartime. They both pack a punch, but the punch is dispersed in this novel-length work. That being said, the novel is not a money grab; Shepard does not appear to be attempting to just cash in. The dissonance of war, the abstraction of life when it can be taken away at any moment, the strain of existence coping with this—all form critical pieces of the novel, just as the setting and its relationship to Reagan's actions in Central American during the 80s does as well. An argument can be made the speculative elements (psychic powers) either detract or bolster the novel, but either way, they culminate at a point that has limited metaphorical value. Regardless, this is one of the 80s novels worth going back for a read. Fans of the classic Vietnam films (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, etc.) may enjoy this, just as people who read Catch-22 or Heart of Darkness may also.