Fallen angels (1984)
Fallen angels is a 1984 fiction book written by Walter Dean Myers.
Richie Perry is seventeen, fresh out of a Harlem high school, with no money for college and no real plan, so he signs up for the Army. In the summer of 1967 he lands in Vietnam expecting the war to be nearly over. It is not. Walter Dean Myers writes the year that follows through Richie's eyes: the boredom, the terror, the wisecracks, the friendship with soldiers like Peewee, and the slow erosion of any clean idea about what they are doing there. The voice is plain and young, and the fear feels close enough to touch.
Quick answers
What is Fallen angels about?
Richie Perry is seventeen, fresh out of a Harlem high school, with no money for college and no real plan, so he signs up for the Army. In the summer of 1967 he lands in Vietnam expecting the war to be nearly over. It is not. Walter Dean Myers writes the year that follows through Richie's eyes: the boredom, the terror, the wisecracks, the friendship with soldiers like Peewee, and the slow erosion of any clean idea about what they are doing there. The voice is plain and young, and the fear feels close enough to touch.
When was Fallen angels published?
Fallen angels was published in 1984.
Who made Fallen angels?
Fallen angels was written by Walter Dean Myers.
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Fallen angels in our writing
- Companion guide: The Vietnam War
A few thoughts on Fallen angels
Richie's Vietnam has clear screen cousins. Platoon puts a green young soldier through the same fear and moral fog, drawn from Oliver Stone's own tour. Full Metal Jacket tracks the harder road from boot camp to the streets of Hue. And the film of We Were Soldiers stays close to the infantry and the cost, for readers who want the ground-level war Walter Dean Myers describes.
War movies that stay close to the soldier, not the strategy
Fallen Angels keeps Richie Perry's Vietnam tour at boot level, all boredom and fear and bad jokes between patrols. Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, We Were Soldiers and Neil Young's Living with War stay in that same register, following soldiers through combat without ever pulling back to explain the bigger campaign.
People swept into a war machine they never chose
Richie signs up for the Army because Harlem gave him no better option, not because he wanted a war. Lord of the Flies, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Song of Achilles and Old Man's War all put ordinary or unwilling people inside violence built by someone else's decisions, then follow the toll it takes on them.
Manga where kids end up fighting the adults' war
Richie is barely out of high school when the draft puts a rifle in his hands, and these series share that same collision of youth and combat. Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Assassination Classroom and Rurouni Kenshin all follow kids or young fighters carrying out violence that grown institutions built long before they arrived.