“Just when you think it is safe to forget about the Vietnam War, something forces it back into consciousness. Perhaps it is former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s nightmare of having to relive, live on CNN, the horror of a night 30 years ago in the Mekong Delta. Perhaps it is a book like Daniel Buckman’s Water in Darkness.”
—Los Angeles Times

“This book should carry an R-rating for violence, language and sexual situations, but unlike the average movie, it earns these elements by making them part of the bricks and mortar . . . Buckman’s novel is filled with sour truths about the ways men use race and ethnicity to erect barriers, walling themselves off from those who might otherwise grant them solace.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Simply put, Water in Darkness is a superb novel, a tasty piece of storytelling. Daniel Buckman’s tale is a roller coaster ride, told from that blunt, dark place where the rubber meets the road. And the writing is gritty, precise, and vivid—like a dream. Here is an earthbound ‘Chicago’ style that harkens back to Studs Lonigan, and reminds one of the close-to-the-bone, walk-the-plank stories of Mike Royko, Stuart Dybek, and Nelson Algren. Buckman speaks for a new, young generation of soldiers who thought they were at peace. Water in Darkness is a sterling piece of work—the best new fiction I have read in a good long while.”
—Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story, winner of the National Book Award

“Water in Darkness is a strong, thought-provoking first novel that works on several different levels: life in the army, the day-to-day ghetto life in post-Vietnam America, and a deep humanity of people trying to survive. It is disturbing, tragic, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. A rich canvas bordering on surreal, with a dream-like poetic style—the kind of book that draws you like a magnet to be read again and again.”
—Yuri Kapralov, author of Once There Was a Village and Devil’s Midnight