The best part of this book is Mr. Kidder's writing skills. Part of the story he tells here includes relaying some of his "becoming a writer" history, and I'm glad he stuck with it (plus am glad he gave up fiction writing to focus on non-fiction "reportial" writing, based on some of his unpublished fiction that he quotes...). The "detachment" of the title is his detachment of soldiers when he was stationed in Vietnam, having become a First Lieutenant via Harvard ROTC. As expected, he's the young academic type with little worldly experienced who is assigned to a detachment of men who are from different "worlds" than Harvard and a silver spoon background. How he grows and and becomes more worldly educated in Vietnam is the general focus of the book. There's no real danger or excitement - one gets the sense that he's written this book to get this story off his chest - but given Mr. Kidder's strength as a writer, that's OK.

I listened to the audio version, which is read by the author, and I give him lots of points for making that effort (narrating an entire book can't be easy, even for the pros). Hearing him speak his own story gives the book that much more immediacy.