Journalists’ Books on Murder, Vietnam Win National Awards

NEW YORK — A California newspaper columnist won the 1988 National Book Award for fiction Tuesday with a novel about a murder in Georgia, and another journalist captured the nonfiction prize with a book about Vietnam.

Peter Dexter, 45, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee and a frequent contributor to national magazines, won for “Paris Trout,” about the murder of a 14-year-old black girl by a white man in a small Georgia town just after World War II.

Neil Sheehan, 52, who was United Press International’s Vietnam bureau chief in 1962 and worked for the New York Times from 1964 to 1972, won for “A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.”

Lived in Midst of War

Sheehan’s book examines the war through the eyes of one who lived most of his adult life in the midst of it.

“I feel like a man who was on a long voyage of discovery . . . who’s finally come home,” Sheehan said after the winners were announced.

Sheehan’s book combines biography and history to tell the story of Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a troubled but dedicated career officer who spoke out against the brutality and ineffectiveness of the early U.S. strategy in Vietnam.

Dexter said his novel’s success will not cause him to give up his column.

‘Different Voices’

“I’m not someone to hole up in the woods and produce a novel every two years. I like being on the street and hearing different voices,” he said.

The writers’ comments came at the awards ceremony, attended by about 500 people at a Manhattan hotel.

In all, 10 authors were nominated for the 1988 National Book Awards.

Don DeLillo, who won in 1985 for “White Noise,” was nominated for “Libra,” a novel based on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and the events that led to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

J. F. Powers, who won in 1963 for his novel “Morte D’Urban,” was nominated in the fiction category with his latest book, “Wheat That Springeth Green,” about a middle-aged priest.

Freud Biography

Peter Gay, who won in 1967 for “The Enlightenment: An Interpretation,” was again nominated in the nonfiction category for his biography, “Freud: A Life for Our Time.”

Other nominees in the fiction category were:

--Mary McGarry Morris, whose first novel, “Vanished,” is about a couple who kidnap a toddler and embark on a five-year flight from justice.

--Anne Tyler, whose novel “Breathing Lessons” concerns a long-married couple and the detours they take on the way to the funeral of a friend in Pennsylvania.