In Country

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains incidents of alcohol and substance misuse, and references to post-traumatic stress disorder and death by suicide.

Ohio State professor Robert J. McMahon argues that during the aftermath of the Vietnam War, “Americans struggled to forge common memories of the Vietnam War and of the U.S. military personnel who fought there” (McMahon, Robert J. “Remembering, and Forgetting, the Vietnam War.” Diplomatic History, vol. 35, no. 1, 2011, pp. 163-69.). America was divided: Those who had served had memories of the real war, and those at home carried memories of a televised war. One of the questions Mason strives to answer in her book is how these two groups can find common ground and heal their wounds after the war. Thus, at its heart, In Country is a novel about the power of memory to both damage and heal.

For the veterans in the novel, the memories of Vietnam are painful. Their unwanted memories are the source of flashbacks and PTSD. As Emmett tells Sam, “It was too miserable to tell. It’s something you just want to forget” (189). Despite how much the veterans want to forget, their flashbacks force them to re-encounter their memories, causing even more pain.