A River in May
A magnificent debut novel, which follows in the spirit of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in which an alienated student named Lopez joins the Vietnam war to escape from his past and himself. Forced out of self-pity by the brutality and injustice surrounding him, Lopez begins to shed his layers of acquired culture, identifying instead with the Vietnamese and their cause.
What happens when a bunch of murderous gringos are let loose on a developing country? We all saw Apocalypse Now. We've read the fiction. Yet few films or books identify even a single Vietnamese by name. Thee million Vietnamese were killed in the American war - half the Jewish Holocaust. This is a story of that war, which questions how far one individual will go to right the wrongs of his country before betraying his fellow soldiers and comrades.
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Edward Wilson
Edward Wilson’s first home was a waterfront bar in Fell’s Point, a Baltimore neighbourhood whose residents included Billie Holiday and Edgar Alan Poe.
He went to Baltimore Poly, a school where Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dashiell Hammett were former students.
He served in Vietnam with the 5th SFGA and was decorated for his part in rescuing wounded Vietnamese soldiers from a minefield. After leaving the Army, Wilson became an expatriate and gave up US nationality to become a British citizen.
He has also lived and worked in Germany and France, and was a post-graduate student at Edinburgh University.
He is the author of eight novels, A River in May, The Envoy, The Darkling Spy, The Midnight Swimmer, A Very British Ending, The Whitehall Mandarin, South Atlantic Requiem and Portrait of the Spy as Young Man, all published by Arcadia Books. The author taught at Lowestoft College and local schools for thirty years. He lives with his wife Julia in rural Suffolk where they garden and try to identify birds.
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