ADHeavily influenced by Ernest Hemingway, another onetime journalist who shared Mr. Just’s affection for Scotch, cigarettes and the ambiguities of war, Mr. Just acquired a reputation for crafting elegant, understated prose and psychologically complex characters. Mr. Just seemed to have a long career in journalism ahead of him when he gave it up to write novels. ADIts coverage of Vietnam in particular was far outpaced by competitors such as the New York Times and Associated Press. In a novel, every fact is a rock thrown in the hull, and the boat sinks a bit.”ADNevertheless, as a reporter, Mr. Just repeatedly found ways to assemble facts into stories and scenes that resembled works of literature. In his 1967 Vietnam War essay, he analyzed the dismal state of the conflict before relating, in the essay’s final paragraphs, the death of a single soldier, 19-year-old Truman Schockley.

Source: Washington Post December 20, 2019 06:33 UTC