The title phrase in Robert Dugoni’s The World Played Chess is a take-off on the old saying “You are playing checkers while they are playing chess”. In other words, you are playing a more simple game while the world is involved in a strategic, complicated game. This title is so appropriate since this book focuses on three time periods, all involving 18-year-old boys, just at the brink of manhood.

The story begins in 2015 when Vincent Bianco, a happily married lawyer with an 18-year old son and a 16-year-old daughter, receives a journal in the mail from William Goodman. William had written the journal in 1968 when he was an 18-year-old Marine serving in Vietnam. William knew that Vincent had dreamed of being a writer and thought the journal might aid him in writing an owner’s manual for young men.

Vincent met William in the summer of 1979 when they worked together for a contractor doing home remodels. Vincent had just graduated from high school and thought he was invincible. William, who had lost his faith during the war, was suffering from PTSD. Vincent received the education of a lifetime from William that summer and again when reading the journal. These lessons are now passed on from Vincent to his own son.

The journal gives the reader an authentic Vietnam experience that is chilling. The antics of the 18-year olds in 1979 are all too relatable as are the tough choices Vincent must make for his own son.

5-stars for this very moving story. I recommend this book to Book Clubs, to parents, to anyone interested in learning about life as a soldier in Vietnam, and to manly-men fiction readers.