A Book Review - Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Myers, Walter Dean.  Fallen Angels.  New York:  Scholastic Inc., 1988. 

When there isn’t much to look forward to in your present situation, most people change things – but change isn’t always good.  This is the case for Richard Perry, a seventeen-year-old, recent graduate from New York who had big dreams of going to college, but realistically knows he could never afford it.  So instead of sticking around the projects he calls home, answering questions about why he hadn’t left and receiving looks of disappointment, Perry decides to join the Army to escape his current situation.  This answer to his perceived humiliation could turn out to be a fatal one as he is dropped in the crazy world of the Viet Nam war.  Here, Perry finds friendship with a crew of teens from very different places, as they all try to survive the harsh reality they are now faced with – boys in a man’s war. 

 

Many historical fiction novels have been written about wars – what makes this one great is the narrator’s perspective.  Perry is so real and a constant reminder to readers that kids were over in Viet Nam fighting.  Through their fighting, swearing, smoking, and talking, Myers’ characters give a clear glimpse of what life could have been like for any number of young men in Viet Nam who just wanted to survive, go back to their families, and just have the chance to grow into real men – not the men the war forced them to become over night. 

 

Myers does an impressive job of weaving the inhumanity of the war with the normality of daily life/thoughts.  Very natural conversation is placed beside unbelievable events.  At one point in the novel, Perry and his pal Peewee are on watch, playing cards to pass the time.  Some guys from another company bring a “VC” lady and her two children they found on the road, they try questioning her but with no luck.  They decide to let her go.  Peewee is obsessed with giving the kids something, anything, when:

I watched as Peewee stood, putting the last touches on the doll.  I thought it was cool when the woman stopped just before she reached the dikes and handed one of the kids to a guy from Charlie Company.  The GI’s arms and legs flung apart from the impact of the blast.  The damn kid had been mined, had exploded in his arms…I saw the woman running across the paddy.  I saw her fold backward as the automatic fire ripped her nearly apart…The woman’s other child stood for a long moment knee deep in water and mud, before, it too, was gunned down.  I turned and saw Peewee walking away.  The doll he made lay facedown in the endless mud.  It was raining again.  230

A scene like this shows how in a moment a soldier’s world can be turned upside down and immediately after they have to keep on focusing or their life could be jeopardized.  Be aware of everything, yet, remember nothing; this paradox exists throughout the book.  But how does a young man be constantly alert without thinking?  The young soldiers wrestle with this numerous times, “I tried to control my imagination, to keep the shadows from becoming things they weren’t…Don’t think.  Stop thinking.  Stop.  Look ahead of me.  Don’t think, don’t daydream.  Look”(194) but the young men have little success and in showing this complexity to the readers, Myers shows the struggles of the soldiers.

Myers also shows the emotional and physical toll the war took on the young soldiers.  Getting ready to embark on the plane ride home, Perry is having a conversation with another character thanking Perry for saving his life, for bringing him back to life, Perry responds, “We’re all dead over here  Monaco…We’re all dead and just hoping we come back to life when we get into the World again” (300).  It is clear to the readers that Perry is not the same youth he was at the beginning of the novel.  Perry seems to be not of his previous world.  In fact,  Myers repeatedly capitalizes World, signifying that it is a specific place, a place they have not been living in but will return to – as of now, Perry is not of the World, his naivitee, innocence, and world of old is gone.

Many more themes are dealt with in Myers’ novel.  There are issues dealing with race, religion, relationships, priorities, reality, brotherhood, and obviously survival.  The candid conversations, coping techniques – healthy and unhealthy – that the soldiers use to make it through their days, are all told so vividly and believably that readers can picture the scenes, the horrors and hopelessness the young boys in Perry’s world experience.  Fallen Angels should be read by all teenagers and by all people interested in humanity and war.