Tobias Wolff is a hell of a writer, but you knew that already. His first memoir, 'This Boy's Life,' was a Huck Finn story set in the Eisenhower era - a story so rich and wounding that not even Hollywood could make a bad movie out of it.

By now, we all know that Hollywood producers always chase after the same properties, that the sharks circle simply because the other sharks are circling.

In its more listless moments, 'Pharaoh's Army' seems a ramshackle collection of memories not overly concerned with telling a larger story.

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