For the Sake of All Living Things

Book excerpt: John M. Del Vecchio’s searing bestseller The 13th Valley was praised as one of the most powerful works of literature to emerge from the Viet Nam experience. Now back in print comes an even more stunning achievement: For the Sake of All Living Things. In this unflinching and unforgettable epic saga, Del Vecchio re-creates the violence and horror of Viet Nam’s parallel tragedy—the Cambodian holocaust—as seen through the eyes of a Cambodian family and the American adviser whose fate becomes irrevocable linked with theirs. A sweeping tale of savagery and survival that pits parents and children against both the North Vietnamese invaders and the unprecedented ferocity of the Khmer Rouge, For the Sake of All Living Things is an unrelenting, ultimately inspiring chronicle of conflict and redemption in the killing fields. “Harrowing....[Del Vecchio] has added another memorable book to the literature of the Southeast Asian conflict.” —The New York Times Book Review “Nothing can prepare the reader for the experience of this book.” —The Dallas Morning News “Exhaustive, emotionally powerful....Del Vecchio brilliantly portrays the labyrinthine tragedies that led to the 1970s cataclysm in Cambodia.” —Publishers Weekly