A vivid account of a gay man at war

The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up, William Morrow & Company, 105 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Hardcover, $13.95.

If you have enjoyed the socalled onslaught of "gay" novels dribbling at us over the past decade and have been waiting for one to top the emotional pitch of The Front Runner, you may just find your cup-o-tea in Charles Nelson's The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up! Combining struggles about gayness with the current resurgence (or ongoing exploitation) of the Vietnam Vet's struggle for justice, Nelson has walked right into a verdant knoll of sympathy from most of us. Attempting to draw together the fragments of awareness that most of us have about "that" war, while simul-

taneously layering an often tongue-in-cheek peep into the mangled sexual confusion of our men (boys) as they relate to each other, Nelson has valiantly weaved a refreshing portrait of one man's self.exploitation in a world of multifaceted degeneration.

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Knowing little about Kurt Strom, the central figure, before his induction into the Marines, we are drawn to his clever mind, viperous tongue, and scathing with within the first few pages. Nelson uses emotion-packed letters written to the folks, grandfolks, outcast cousin, straight sports buddy, and best gay friend to portray the slow development of a young man's fears; hopes, and certainly cynical wading into an environment of male negativism. I found myself quickly intrigued by what Kurt writes home to his divorce-decadent parents, his bright and contemporary grandmother, and his "in-on-it-all" female cousin, Chloe.

Dealing with the women in his life is one thing, and how.he deals with the men in his life is another. We gays have to couch our real feelings to the straight men we know, and Strom's letters demonstrate adept couching. His best friend, Paul, a gay man to whom Kurt writes of his sexual exploits (or, in most situations, non-exploits) makes the reader laugh! Strom

THE BOY HO PICKED TR BULLETS UPA Novel by

Charles Nelson

has an enviable way with words, and through his letter dialogues, we can see a quick mind and fearsome appetite for. language and semantics that allow him to make it through the killing, the death, the mutilation, and the terror of

war.

Perhaps the most successful element of The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up is Nelson's ability to present several sides of the same experience through one character's written retelling. I have always been leary of the memoir syndrome so popular these days, particularly in fiction. Yet with the arrival of this book, I am ready to change my mind.

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The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up is a proportioned glimpse at a fairy's flight to hell, told after he's had time to think about his burns, had time to live with them for a while. Strom says at one point "...foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." There's nothing small about Charles Nelson's mind, and if this first novel made strong by fastidious consistency throughout is any indication of future hobgoblins, I, for one, am ready to be gobbled up.

Tim Kelleher, Courtesy Mom Guess What, Newspaper of

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