James Webb's Last Two Novels

By: buzzbolt
Published On: 11/5/2006 6:17:33 PM



If you have not followed the exclusive Raising Kaine reviews of James Webb's six novels, you may still view them:

Fields of Fire, (1978), click  HERE.

A Sense of Honor, (1981), click  HERE.

A Country Such as This, (1983), click  HERE.

Something to Die For, (1991), click  HERE.

 
See below for comments on the final two novels in the James Webb Fiction Series.
At the beginning of this series, I intended to give the readers of Raising Kaine comprehensive reviews of all of James Webb's novels before November 7.  I regret that I cannot use "the dog ate my homework" excuse.  Instead, campaign photography occupied most of my time these last few months.  The brief hasty reviews on these last two Webb novels amount to comments, mostly copied from the covers of the works. 

The Emporer's General story is set in the closing days of World War II and centers on General Douglas MacArthur's actions in dealing with the defeated and conquered Japanese Empire.  The narrator is a young U. S. Army captain, Jay Marsh, who is MacArthur's aide-de-camp and confidant.

From the back cover of the 1999 Thorndike Press edition:

Masterfully written and highly evocative, The Emporer's General is the story of General Douglas MacArthur's bold and calculating transition from wartime general to 'American Caesar,' and his enormous ego, his personal demons, and the glaring miscalculations he made in bargaining with the Japanese.

Conservative columnist George Will concludes:
This compelling, fascinating exercise of historial fiction proves, again, that James Webb is as fine a novelist as he was a Marine.  Enough said.

The Emporer's General, 1999, is my favorite of the six James Webb novels.  It was published 21 years after Webb's first (and most acclaimed) work, Fields of Fire, 1978.  Several trivial facts are associated with The Emporer's General.  In the year that James Webb was paid for screen rights to The Emporer's General, no other work received more and The Emporer's General is the only Webb novel that contains no mention of the Vietnam War. 

James Webb's Lost Soldiers, 2001, returns to the Vietnam War with a dynamic, adventure mystery thriller.  From the 2002 Dell Paperback Edition:

Brandon Condley went to Vietnam and never quite came home.  Instead, he fought and lost a war, loved and lost a woman, and fell in love with a country he could not save.  Now Condley has returned to the teeming, tangled world of postwar Vietnam to search for the remains of MIA's.  What he finds--a body that does not match its dog tags--touches off an explosion of mystery, intrigue, betrayal, and murder."

In the recent mud-slingling about Webb's fiction, the slingers failed to notice that this work has been profoundly praised by none other than Republican Senator John McCain, a 2008 Presidential contender, who said:
James Webb's new novel paints a portrait of a modern Vietnam charged with hopes for the future but haunted by the ghosts of its war-torn past.  It captures well the lingering scars of the war, and exposes the tension between the dynamism of a new generation and the invisible bondage of an older generation for whom wartime allegiances, and animosities, are rendered no less vivid by the passage of time.  A novel of revenge and redemption that tells us much about both where Vietnam is headed and where it has been.

I was motivated to volunteer for the Webb for Senate campaign in no small part because of James Webb's novels. I lamented to Webb's driver and Marine Viet Nam compatriot, Mac McGarvey, that we would probably not have any more books when Jim enters the U. S. Senate.  Mac pointed out that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a number of books while he was in office and that Jim Webb may have similar plans.  Thanks, Mac!!  Thanks, Jim!!  Thanks, RK readers!!
C. W. Dean, November 2006

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C. W. Dean has been a Professional Photographer in the State of Virginia since 1972 specializing in portraits.  He is a Vietnam veteran, son of a World War II veteran, and, like James Webb, proudly traces his origins to Virginia's Scots-Irish immigrants.  He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, near Mount Vernon, Virginia. To visit his website: click HERE.


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