The Red Convertible

Content Warning: This guide contains references to war-related trauma, suicide, and systemic racism and violence against Indigenous Americans.

Lyman knows almost nothing about what Vietnam was like for Henry. The war happens blurrily, completely off the page, and with unnerving speed. In just over one page, the reader learns that Henry enlisted, became a marine, got deployed to Vietnam in 1970, didn’t write many letters, was captured, and came back home three years later when the war ended. The fast clip of information makes the stark contrast between Henry’s prewar and postwar character all the more chilling. In the span of three pages, the brother who put Susy on his shoulders to twirl and laugh becomes the TV addict who absentmindedly bites through his lip.

Henry’s trauma has ripple effects through the family. Any time he’s not around, he’s what Lyman and his mother talk about. His mother tries to proceed through the lip-biting incident normally, turning off the TV “real quiet” and ushering the boys to dinner (181). This attempt at normalcy is made abnormal by Henry’s trauma, but the characters don’t know what else to do for him. Though the symptoms of PTSD have been recognized since at least World War I, stigma and lack of awareness were still pervasive at the time of the Vietnam War.