MAILER, NORMAN — Why are we in Vietnam ? - A novel.

London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1969 First U.K. edition 208 p.. 20 x 14 cm HARDCOVER: (Orig. cloth with gilt. titles. AS NEW. With VERY GOOD / AS NEW first issue dust jacket) Why Are We In Vietnam? (WWVN) is a 1967 novel by the American author Norman Mailer. It focuses on a hunting trip to the Brooks Range in Alaska where a young man is brought by his father, a wealthy businessman who works for a company that makes cigarette filters and is obsessed with killing a grizzly bear. As the novel progresses, the protagonist is increasingly disillusioned that his father resorts to hunting tactics that seem dishonest and weak, including the use of a helicopter and taking credit for killing a bear. At the end of the novel, the protagonist tells the reader that he is soon going to serve in the Vietnam War as a soldier.