John McCain gave the book a good recommendation:
“James Webb’s new novel paints a portrait of a modern Vietnam charged with hopes for the future but haunted by the ghosts of its war-torn past. It captures well the lingering scars of the war, and exposes the tension between the dynamism of a new generation and the invisible bondage of an older generation for whom wartime allegiances, and animosities, are rendered no less vivid by the passage of time. A novel of revenge and redemption that tells us much about both where Vietnam is headed and where it has been.”
— Senator John McCain
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780440240914&view=quotes
Whoa! Allen must have known that McCain has also read the book and gave it that review, kill two birds with one stone!