Casey Agonistes

Realising that this was the man who wrote "The Sand Pebbles" - I expected something different. And I got it: this is a brilliant, sad, funny collection of stories by a master writer. I read it in my twenties; I have dipped into it a number of times since (last 30 years), and have enjoyed every time.

The title story is a masterpiece: set in a hospital ward full of military vets, it is about what amounts to their shared hallucination - and it is heartbreakingly good.

So too is "Hunter Come Home" - and fact, all of them! Here is an excellent synopsis, which saves me the trouble of writing one:

http://recoveringhopper.blogspot.com/2011/03/casey-agonistes.html