Fallen Angels is the story of Richard Perry, an intelligent but impoverished high school graduate who, unable to afford higher education, enlists in the U.S. Army just before the inception of the Vietnam War. Perry's experience in Vietnam is rendered in vivid, often gruesome detail. He recounts unflinchingly tales of American military atrocities alongside records of guerilla brutality and the grinding mental and emotional pain of combat fatigue. The novel is noteworthy for its heavy use of profanity and for its frank account of the wartime experience.
Killer Angels is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. It is told from multiple perspectives by a number of narrators on both sides of the conflict. The novel is meticulously researched and presents the tragedy of the conflict in the context of honor-driven culture and the propaganda-based need for General Lee to achieve a victory on Union soil. It dwells powerfully on the horrors of war.
The second part of Angels in America, Perestroika, sees Prior, a gay man with AIDS, encountering an angel while his lover, Louis, runs off with a Mormon man, Joe. The angel tells Prior that it's his job to put an end to human progress. The play continues the themes explored in the first part, with characters questioning their identities. It also adds a spiritual element, with the character of the angel, as well as a social commentary that suggests that humankind has a long way to go but can improve.
Part one of the play Angels in America, Millenium Approaches, focuses on the intertwining fates and overlapping storylines of two couples, Prior and Louis and Joe and Harper. Prior has just learned he has AIDs and is now hearing a mysterious voice while Joe, a Mormon, is struggling to accept that he's gay. The play examines identity and what it means to be gay, rich, or Mormon. It also offers a sharp critique of the early days of the AIDs crisis.