SOURCE: Allen, Bruce. “Nam Book Year's Best.” Christian Science Monitor (7 June 1985): B7.

In the following review, Allen compliments The Barracks Thief for its depth and verisimilitude.

This remarkable short novel [The Barracks Thief], virtually unnoticed by reviewers (including this one) when it appeared last summer, was recently named the winner of the PEN Faulkner Award for the year's most distinguished work of American fiction. It is a more than worthy choice, and a powerful reminder to those of us who think we know the literary territory that every serious book has a claim on us, and that there really isn't any substitute for reading everything, or at least trying to.

The story begins in Seattle in the mid-1960s, focusing on a soon-to-be-broken family, the Bishops, and following the beginning military career of their eldest son, Philip, a confused and angry boy drifting away from family and toward...