The boy who picked the bullets up
- Title
- The boy who picked the bullets up
- Description
- Charles Nelson (1942-2003) served as a Marine in the Vietnam War and claimed that some of this novel was autobiographical. The story follows medic Kurt Strom during a year he spent stationed in Vietnam. Strom’s experiences as a gay Marine are relayed via letters he sends home to his family and friends. One reviewer described the novel as containing “endless humour and devastating realism”, while the gay perspective was praised for presenting “decidedly different” insights on war. The novel’s title is taken from the poem of the same name by Arthur Rimbaud. Published by William Morrow, the book’s dust jacket shows a soldier’s trousered backside, with a blue bandana in the left pocket, alluding to ‘flagging’, a coded means of expressing sexual preferences.
- Creator
- Charles Nelson (1942-2003)
- Location
- New York (NY)
- Publisher
- William Morrow and Company
- Date
- 1981
- Tags
- Gay Fiction
- Gay Men
- Gay Military Personnel
- LGBTQ+ Fiction
- Marines
- Vietnam War (1961-1975)
- Rights
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