Book Review: 'Message from Nam' by Danielle Steel
(C) 1990 Dell Books Question: What do readers get when a romance novelist - Danielle Steel - attempts to push the literary envelope and creates a love story set in Vietnam-era America? Answer: Depending on one's particular tastes and sensibilities, either (a) a fascinating literary break from Steel's norm (glitzy love stories set in the world of the rich and famous) and a crowd-pleasing tearjerker/historical novel or, (b) a well-meant but vacuous exercise in fluff which awkwardly crams every tragic event in American history into a standard-issue "awakening of consciousness" story involving a Steel heroine who finds true love in the middle of a chaotic decade. 1990's Message from Nam represents Steel's first stab at trying to break out of her Problems Faced By Very Wealthy People in Life and Love mold and respectability as a more well-rounded writer of fiction. As a writer aiming for a larger audience, Steel apparently figured that in the post- Platoo...