This is In Country was a bit of a disappointment for me. I've read and really enjoyed Shiloh and other Mason stories, so my hopes were high. And while I enjoyed the novel, I had trouble connecting with the characters and setting of the story, which could have been intentional on Mason's part. It seems to suggest the impossibility of recapturing a historical event through narrative. All of his references to temporal and regional aspects of culture, such as song titles, K-Marts, and McDonald's, prohibit both Sam and the reader from delving into the experience of another time. Mason's message in the novel is quite obvious: wars may end but their effects never diminish. Several recurring images in the novel underline this theme: the "new" song by the Beatles, a group that broke up in 1970, appeared on the radio in 1984; information about Sam's father revealed, such as the fact that he chose his name; references to the veteran whose daughter was affected by Agent Orange even though she was never in the war. Even Sam's remarks like this: “Down the hall, Emmett burped. There was ketchup in the lasagna,” are also similar images. All the veterans in the novel seem to be haunted by the war in some way, even those who deny thinking about the war. These men reminded me of a study that found that men who fought in Vietnam had difficulty reintegrating into U.S. society once they returned. In Vietnam, they had enacted a “warrior” version of masculinity and lost that status upon return. They didn't know how to reconnect with normal male roles. Pete seems to be the best example of this observation, with his inability to hold down a job and his alleged maintenance of t-ears......middle of paper......embracing the feminine roles of wife and mother , which disgusts Sam. But through his research, Sam seems to feel more comfortable with his body. After meeting Tom, she has a different understanding of her body: “She imagined it coming now. “I came to play with your breasts,” he might say. Dawn's pregnancy, which precludes Dawn's desire to "be a dad" because she is "sick of being a mom," and Sam's mother's home life, with her boring spouse and baby, initially repel Sam, but by the end of the novel he seems more at ease. with his stepsister. He reconnects with his mother by giving her the cat statue. Her search for the extreme masculine exhibited in war leads her to achieve a balance between masculine and feminine. Emmett finds that balance too as he manages to smile, staring at the names of his friends at the Vietnam Memorial.