Precious Freedom : A Novel

The Vietnam War was a tragedy for America—and for Vietnam. But for the Vietnamese, it was also a victory: they defeated the world’s wealthiest country and most powerful military.

FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS COMES PRECIOUS FREEDOM—A HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR AS A NOVEL, IN THE VEIN OF NORMAN MAILER, TRUMAN CAPOTE, HUNTER S. THOMSON, AND TOM WOLFE. 

The Vietnam War was a tragedy for America—and for Vietnam. But for the Vietnamese, it was also a victory: they defeated the world’s wealthiest country and most powerful military.  Author James Bradley began to wonder: How did they win?

Precious Freedom: A Novel of the Vietnam War explores this question through a powerful and meticulously researched story inspired by real events.

In 1967, nineteen-year-old Chip Zobel enlists in the Marines, answering his government''s call to defend democracy in South Vietnam. But what he finds on the ground shakes his faith: rotting clothes, drinking from Agent Orange–tainted puddles, constant ambushes, a brutal case of malaria—and the realization that many of the Viet Cong he’s fighting are actually South Vietnamese locals.

Back home, Chip''s mother, Betty, initially a staunch supporter of the war, begins to question its morality after her son deploys. His father, Hank, also grows skeptical, uncovering US military reports that compare Ho Chi Minh to George Washington—leading his people to freedom.

Meanwhile, in a quiet Vietnamese hamlet, fifteen-year-old May watches as a US Marine kills her father. She flees to the forest and joins a Viet Cong training camp. Three months later, she makes her first kill as a sniper—eventually killing four more Americans with her rifle. Unbeknownst to her, her path will ultimately cross with that of Chip Zobel—the Marine who killed her father.

James Bradley wrote Precious Freedom to honor all who served in Vietnam and to help a new generation understand the war’s complex truths.

This is a story that America has never been told.

“James Bradley journeyed to Iwo Jima and returned with Flags of Our Fathers and now ventures to Vietnam and brings us Precious Freedom, where he reveals that, if we’d known what happened in the 1960s in Vietnam, American mothers would never have sent their children to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the best vaccination against great lies.”—Oliver Stone