Hiroshima Joe

Joe Sandingham, in his halcyon days a British army officer, now scrounges food in the seedy Hong Kong hotel where he lives, steals and runs errands for Leung, a sinister drug dealer and racketeer, to support his drink and dope habits. A ruined heap striving for some sliver of dignity, his only friend a Chinese prostitute, Joe is tormented by memories of World War II, of his lover Bob who died in combat, of his long ordeal as a prisoner of the Japanese. The narrative shifts back and forth between time present (1952) and the war years, accumulating brutal detail and scourging event; the POW period culminating in the cataclysm at Hiroshima, hard by his prison camp. Hounded by Leung's murderous henchmen, dying of radiation sickness, Joe finally achieves a kind of victory by hanging himself. After some narrative awkwardness, Booth is able to fashion a moving drama from the cruelties and pathologies of modern warfareand some moral meaning from the terrible travail of a man who survived, and even transcended it. 40,000 first printing; $50,000 promo; paperback rights to Viking Penguin. (April 29)