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A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

Sheehan, Neil
Buy on Amazon Kindle
historical fiction war memoir past tense third limited POV ~1,500 pp
features extracted 2026-04-12

Vibe

bleak gritty reflective

A dark historical fiction. Expect minimal worldbuilding, dense, literary prose, epic scope. Contains notable violence.

Style Fingerprint

Prose density 75
sparsedense
Pacing 40
slow burnpropulsive
Emotional tone 20
darkhopeful
Worldbuilding 10
minimalmaximal
Char / plot 60
character-drivenplot-driven
Interiority 50
externalintrospective
Ending 30
unresolvedcathartic
Stakes 85
intimateepic

Content

Violence 95%
noneextreme
Sexual content 45%
noneexplicit
Humor 10%
seriouscomedic
Romance 30%
nonecentral

Structure & Cast

Structure
Word count374,918
Page count~1,500 pp
Prologue—
Epilogue—
Tensepast
Cast & World
POVthird limited

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