In Pharaoh's Army, by Tobias Wolff
Amazon.com
In This Boy's Life Tobias Wolf created an unforgettable memoir of an American childhood. Now he gives us a precisely and sometimes pitilessly remembered account of his young manhood - a young manhood that become entangled in the tragic adventure that was Vietnam. Mordantly funny, searingly honest, In Pharaoh's Army is a war memoir in the tradition of George Orwell and Michael Herr.
From Publishers Weekly
Wolff's memoir of his disillusioning experience as a soldier in Vietnam was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Novelist and short story writer Wolff, who recounted his early years in This Boy's Life, served as a junior officer adviser to a South Vietnamese army unit in the Mekong Delta for his tour in Vietnam. Wolff, a reluctant warrior at best, now offers an idiosyncratic, witty, and thoroughly enjoyable glimpse into his military service and his civilian life immediately before and after Vietnam. This extended essay is not so much a combat narrative as the story of a young man's struggle to reach maturity and coming to terms with his family, his loves, his America, and himself. Wolff's characters (most especially his father and the long-suffering Sergeant Benet) and the American and Vietnamese settings are vividly depicted in a style only a skilled craftsman could devise. An excellent addition to American literature and Vietnam collections for academic and public libraries.
John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.
Chicago Tribune
Painful...powerful...brilliant. The book is remarkable in its language, which is as supple and distilled as any contemporary American writer's; in its economy; in its structure; and, most of all, in its candor, humor, and generosity of spirit...By every measure of feeling and technique, it's a magnificent and sobering achievement.
Though trained for the Special Forces, Wolff--the acclaimed author of This Boy's Life (1989)--wasn't much of a warrior, spending his entire tour of duty in a muddy, obscure village in the delta. His most crucial assignment was to trade an authentic ChiCom rifle for a Zenith television so that he and the veteran sergeant who worked for him could watch Bonanza in color. He weaves into his Vietnam narrative the story of his sad, ne'er-do-well father and of a hopeless romance he enjoyed (and suffered) during his quasi-civilian year of language study in Washington, D.C. His is an extremely literary memoir, full of rueful, gracefully rendered anecdotes, most of them centering on his ineptness as a soldier. Back from language study, Wolff was first assigned to lead an airborne company on a jump. He couldn't remember how it was done except that the jump should begin at the appearance of yellow smoke. The smoke Wolff did see wasn't yellow, but he ordered his men out anyhow; they landed in a slimy landfill five miles short of the target. There's the story, too, of a hapless dog Wolff saved from a barbecue, only to have it end up on his plate at a farewell dinner. Wolff also delivers vivid accounts of close calls and a graphic report of the destruction of one small village in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, but he never loses his pleasant, self-effacing tone, and because of his immaculate prose, his unlikely mix of memories is seamless. In fact, though it may seem an odd adjective for a war memoir, it's charming and could appeal to almost anyone. John Mort, Booklist