War, Death, Laughter: Vassar Students React to Fobbit

Midway through writing my debut novel, Fobbit , I started to feel uneasy about what was making its way from my head to the page.

On the one hand, I had a well-meaning buffoon named Captain Abe Shrinkle who, despite his years of Army training, found himself in one scene giving way "completely to the dread and terror of close-order combat and releasing the clench on his bowels."  This, during a stand-off with a suicide bomber, could be construed as funny....or the gallows humor could go comp...