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Lunch with a Soldier
By Derek Hansen, HarperCollins, 448pp, $29.95
THIS is Derek Hansen's fourth lunch. You may know the others: Lunch with the Generals, Lunch with Mussolini and Lunch with the Stationmaster. The core story in Lunch with a Soldier is a gutsy production. Unfortunately, it is framed by the occasion of its telling, a stiff, overly shrewd discussion group.
In Hansen's lunches a bunch of guys (Ramon, Milos, Lucio and Neil), with no pressing commitments, meet in a restaurant. One of them tells the others a story. In Lunch with a Soldier, Neil tells his. At interludes the others comment on the progress of the story, whether they should believe it, and how it reflects upon the teller.
The lunching thing is a testosterone-inflected version of the book club. It reeks of ego. There...