A Rift in the Earth

July 31, 2017
Historian and Vietnam veteran Reston (Luther’s Fortress) shares the rocky, controversy-filled story behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (popularly known as the Wall) in this well-written examination of how the memorial was conceived and built. The story of the Wall has been told before, including in two first-person books by men who were instrumental in building it: Jan Scruggs (To Heal a Nation, written with Joel Swerdlow) and Robert Doubek (Creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial). Reston makes liberal use of those two books here, along with many secondary sources. Few of the main players come out unscathed in Reston’s telling: while Scruggs vacillated in his support for extra design elements, designer Maya Lin remained “brusque and uncompromising”; Tom Carhart and Jim Webb, critics of Lin’s design, are portrayed as blustering bullies; benefactor H. Ross Perot was bullheaded and petulant; and memorial proponent Sen. John Warner was “self-congratulatory.” Some readers may take issue with Reston’s occasional references to the Wall as the “Vietnam Memorial” or the “Vietnam War Memorial.” The memorial was not intended as a monument to the war; rather, it was designed as a tribute to those who served in the war, living and dead. That minor criticism aside, Reston has produced a creditable account of this contentious affair. Illus. Agent: Markus Hoffman, Regal Hoffman & Associates.

Starred review from July 1, 2017
A gripping history of the fights over how to memorialize the Vietnam War.Given the contentiousness of the war, the clashes it aroused on the home front, and the way that it undermined the confidence Americans had in their government, it should come as no surprise that the question of how to honor the war and those who fought it created its own controversy. In this fine book, accomplished journalist and military veteran Reston (Luther's Fortress: Martin Luther and His Reformation Under Siege, 2015, etc.) brings to life the intense wars of words and political machinations inspired by the decision to build a Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. At the center of the book and the conflicts it depicts is the outcome of the 1981 competition to determine the design for the memorial, at the time the largest such competition in the histories of Europe and the United States. The winner was Maya Lin, at the time a 21-year-old undergraduate at Yale. Lin, equally parts naive and stubborn, had no idea the maelstrom that her victory would create. The by-now familiar design--a wall that in her conception represented the titular "rift in the earth," stark and simple--proved deeply contentious, with various veterans' groups, politicians, and general rabble-rousers taking public and sometimes brutally malicious stands against the design and its implementation, which in turn caused Lin and her supporters to dig in their own heels. Readers will find it nearly impossible not to have visceral reactions, taking sides in these events that, in light of fights over Civil War monuments today, still seem fresh. The Vietnam Memorial, with Lin's wall as the centerpiece (but with a series of compromises also put in place), is one of the most striking features on the National Mall. As this relatively brief but powerful book shows, this outcome was far from a foregone conclusion.

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July 1, 2017

Architect Maya Lin's design for a Vietnam War Memorial required a physical split in the land; it also ignited a social division among veterans' groups who claimed the monument was disrespectful to Americans who fought and died in the war and those who saw it as public art that would help heal the nation. Reston (Luther's Fortress) recounts not only this conflict but also the "art war" between those who advocated for Lin's abstract design and the traditionalists who lobbied the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts to add renown sculptor Frederick Hart's compelling statues of three soldiers to the monument. Although overshadowed by Hart and her defamers, Lin stood her ground and refused to modify her design, believing it should recognize the horrors of all battles and not solely commemorate those who served in Vietnam. Hart's sculptures were added by the commission as a compromise. Reston concludes with a poignant contemplation on his friend Ronald Ray, whose name is one of the more than 58,000 that adorns the memorial, and a discussion with a Vietnamese scholar about the war's impact on Vietnam. VERDICT This moving historical snapshot casts a wide net of interest and will appeal to Vietnam-era scholars, art historians, and general readers.--Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2017
Reston, who served in army intelligence during the Vietnam War, dramatically and incisively chronicles the art war over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that raged from 1979 to 1984, reopening the wounds of that tragic conflict. A design competition yielded an improbable winner: Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Yale undergraduate whose proposal for a rift in the earth from which emerged black granite walls etched with the names of the dead outraged many a veteran and politician expecting a traditional patriotic military statue. Lin's inexperience, gender, and ethnicity as a child of Chinese immigrants made her selection all the more incendiary. As Reston vigorously re-creates the fight over Lin's poetic, profoundly healing concept, he vividly portrays the players involved on both sides. Lin is resplendent in her brave refusal to compromise her vision during exhausting, sometimes vicious skirmishes that resulted in sculptor Frederick Hart contributing his figurative Three Soldiers to the site. As current battles are waged over public statues honoring leaders of the Confederacy, Reston's account of an earlier struggle over the art of remembrance offers a clarifying and affecting perspective.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)