SOURCE: "Bottles of Violence: Fragments of Vietnam in Emily Mann's Still Life," in America Rediscovered: Critical Essays on Literature and Film of the Vietnam War, edited by Owen W. Gilman, Jr. and Lorrie Smith, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990, pp. 238-55.

In the essay below, Meyers examines Mann's depiction of the violence underlying American myths regarding manhood, male/female relations, and heroism in Still Life.

Emily Mann's Still Life is important to the canon of literature about the Vietnam War not only because it dramatizes the plight of the veteran and his family, who are also "veterans" of the war, but because it examines the basic dichotomies of American culture: "American Myths" are brought into direct confrontation with the realities of the aftermath of Vietnam. The unusual structure of Still Life makes it a classic example of a form Philip Beidler finds characteristic of Vietnam literature written since 1975, in which...