Phi Lok, the Specter
by Forrest Greenwood
A cathartic book for those who remember Vietnam. Stanley: a brutish, overweight, often drunk, American retiree is married to a Thai girl half his age. the novel arches up through his brush with Asian ghosts, then down through his recovered bad memories of Vietnam, and finally lands Stanley at the end of a runway with no plane in sight. the book spirals, circles and concludes a forgotten war.