Welcome to the Club

Cherry-blossom time in Hiroshima, the April after the Unpleasantness. Lt. Andrew Oxblood, a Philadelphian, a Quaker, a blueblood, and "the only nineteen-and-a-half-year-old virgin in the world," becomes involved in the billeting problems of a visiting trio of Negro U.S.O. entertainers. Oxblood is a young and hopeful Quixote - and the author, blending irony and pity, lovingly details the wild four-day weekend, during which Oxblood not only juggles the White Man's Burden, the Black Man's Burden, the Red and Yellow Man's Burden, but solves his personal problem as well. Zesty. pungent, colorful, and hilarious, this is a brilliantly imaginative novel on a deeply serious theme. For Clem Wood's book is about prejudice - racial, social and sexual; his characters - from Oxblood to the Nigerian Nefertiti, Shawna O'Shay, to the Texan General Strapp of the 50th (Hounddog Division)-are real people; and his searing compassion extends beyond his book to every reader who has tasted the dubious joys of belonging to the Club.