An ambitious, confounding, and partially successful tale that stews in the madness of modern warfare.
A debut postmodern literary novel explores the madness of the Vietnam War via the perspective of a helicopter squadron Marine.
George Orwell “G.O.” Hill of South Texas comes from a long line of Marines, which is why he decides to enlist in the corps during the height of the Vietnam War. He spends his last night in America attempting—unsuccessfully—to lose his virginity to the girl he’s had a crush on since elementary school. He arrives in-country at Hue-Phu Bai Airport, where he is assigned to Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265. There, he receives his first injury moments later when he zips his fly too quickly. He soon hooks up with a buddy from flight training, Locker Gallo, who gives him a quick tour of the base, where he meets characters like Gunny G., a blustery gunnery sergeant highly concerned with the condition of the squadron’s coffee pot, and Daniell “Pogo” Nadal, a hapless Frenchman drafted six months after he moved to the United States. G.O. and Gallo start flying missions together, though when they aren’t taking incoming fire, they’re scheming about how to sneak off to a local brothel or searching the body bags of recently deceased soldiers for souvenir binoculars. Their analogs on the other side are the People’s Army of Vietnam scouts Xin Loi and Hung, who put up with the same combination of boredom, absurdity, and terror (while sustaining many more casualties). Unlike G.O., Xin is actively trying to win the war. “They will dance on our graves, Xin thought. So far Hung was the only one Xin had met who had an original idea about how the Americans might be defeated. ‘We just keep killing them until they leave.’ ” As the flights get hairier, will G.O. get as serious as the war demands? Or is his chaotic and ridiculous personality already the perfect pairing for this pointless conflict? Templeton’s novel is highly episodic and lacks a strong narrative arc. It is reminiscent at times of James Joyce’s Ulysses, following G.O. through mundane moments in his military life, such as playing poker and visiting the latrine. The narration is stream-of-consciousness, with many dreamlike digressions into the various characters’ memories or flights of fancy. The tale’s greatest selling point is the enthusiasm with which it replicates and riffs on the Vietnam era’s jargon and invented slang: “Danny D. was on a roll. War at its most glorious. Fought around the foam of rusty Ballantines. G.O. glanced around at the other tables. Same stories. Told by different salts to different boots. Would G.O. live to tell the FNGs how to survive in the land of Boom-boom?” There are the requisite soldier nicknames—Sugar Bear, Scrotum, Duck Butter, Barf—and a prodigious amount of scatological humor. The mix of the surreal, the violent, the tedious, and the profane says something vague but perhaps appropriate about the war and the era. Even so, the work is probably too demanding a read for general fans of war novels. The story will appeal most to those who enjoy the dense postmodern fiction of the 1960s and ’70s and to students particularly dedicated to literary portrayals of Vietnam.
An ambitious, confounding, and partially successful tale that stews in the madness of modern warfare.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73409-970-6
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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