[Ilander]

Okay, Dalton Trumbo wrote the book around the time of World War I, mostly in protest of American involement, but also as a denouncement of war in general (I did make a minor mistake, however, syaing that it was leftist propoganda, because at the time, it would have been rightist...).

The main character, Joe Bonham is from a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere USA, but found himself drafted to "make the world safe for democracy."

The book begins with Joe lying in his hospital bed after suffering grievious injuries---he is now a deaf, blind, quadruple amputee being kept alive by machines, thanks to the methods of modern warfare and modern medicine.

The book chronicles his thoughts over the course of about six years in the hospital, and how he tries desperately to regain some aspect of being alive, while remembering the time that he was not one of the living dead.