THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (282 pp.)—Vern Snelder— Putnam ($3).
Captain Jeff Fisby, an ex-pharmacist from Ohio, neither looked, felt nor behaved like a professional soldier. He was chubby and sloppy, and in his job as administrator of an Okinawan village he was shamelessly inefficient. When it came to carrying out Plan B, a scheme for re-educating the natives, he was a failure.
Plan B had been drawn up by Fisby's boss, Colonel Wainright Purdy III, "a man with a clearly defined mission in the Army— he was reaching for the stars." Behind Purdy loomed the formidable figure of Mrs. Purdy, president...