Buffalo Soldiers [Hardcover]

Robert O'Connor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 1993

Set on a luxuriously appointed and hopelessly corrupt Army base in Mannheim, Germany, where the soldiers prefer real-life race riots to mock combat, Robert O'Connor's viciously funny novel is conclusive proof that peace is hell and the U.S. Army is its ninth circle.

In that hell, Specialist Ray Elwood is the ultimate survivor: a high-stakes drug dealer, bureaucratic con artist, and shrewd collector of other people's secrets. Elwood is contemplating cleaning up his act, although doing so will require one last, epic heroin deal. But of course it's then that his life will careen totally out of control. With its impeccably rendered cast of sycophants, drug burn-outs, and uniformed sociopaths, Buffalo Soldiers give us a scabrous, haunting vision of a military idled by the New World Order—and at all-out war with itself.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Once again, a first novelist inveigles the reader's empathy for a swaggering substance abuser by using direct address in the second person. But while Bright Lights, Big City jammed its hero's addiction up the nose of a greedy decade, this book can make no such zeitgeisty claims for its cocksure central character--Army Specialist Ray Elwood, based in present-day Germany. Elwood has brokered his genius for writing never-fail requisition memos into a profitable operation, specializing in skag and elaborate favor-banking. When a new sergeant threatens his system, Elwood tries for one final payday. Despite the annoying and intrusive familiarity of the formal device ("You want to get off, and two men in your squad need to shoot up. Here's how you do it . . . "), the novel remains highly readable; O'Connor writes bitter, funny prose and creates bureaucratic snafus of the first order. Alternating scenes of Army idiocy and clinically realistic drug addiction are far more compelling than O'Connor's attempt to attribute his hero's bracing nihilism to his tragic past. Toward its end the book falters, as Elwood flirts with maudlin self-pity. But O'Connor misfires now and then only because he aims high; aided by his infectious gift for sneering and his sharp eye for institutionalized depravity, he marks most of his targets with tight clusters around the bull's-eye.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An M-1 tank of a novel, fast and powerful and dangerous...way nasty and blindingly funny." —Jay McInerney

"This book may well find a place on the shelf with Joseph Heller's Catch-22.... It takes a fine novelist to tell such a sordid story so beautifully—and a brave one to hold out no hope for redemption but the jolting effect of a cold-eyed look at the truth." —The New York Times Book Review

"Buffalo Soldiers rips a story of survival from the fearsome realm of the modern Army's barracks, trenches, and gutters. Military jargon becomes in-you-face narrative, punctuated by extremes of horror and humor.... This book is about now, and its present-tense urgency never flags." —Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer


From the Trade Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (January 11, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679415084
• ISBN-13: 978-0679415084
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,904,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Hope, hope, hope.", March 6, 2002

By 

Bonnie Cantrell (Shreveport, La USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buffalo Soldiers (Paperback)

I first read this novel back in 1993, when I worked at a local Bookstore. I took Buffalo Soldiers home with me one night and once I opened it, I could not put it down. The subject matter is not very pretty, nor is it something that I would under normal circumstances read about. But the author has such a wonderful way of drawing you into this story. You find yourself outraged, disgusted, alarmed and even frightened. And you are enjoying every single minute of it!! Elwood is this century's best "anti-hero". A man with nothing: nothing to lose, nothing to hold onto, and nothing to live for. I mean, lets get real. Elwood is a drug dealing [scoundrel] who uses people to get what he needs at that moment. Yet, you find yourself rooting for him, hoping against hope that he will turn his life around, wanting more for him than he wants for himself. Elwood is someone that you would never want to be, yet by the end of this novel, you can't help but want to meet him. Elwood gives us hope that even the worst of people can change, or at least desire to change. I have been a book lover and collector since I was 12 years old, but this is the first author that I have EVER wanted to talk to and congratulate for writing a book that is one of the most beatiful that I have ever read. I tried, unsuccessfully, to contact him. I have read this book 6 times and am still amazed at the depth of it. Do not miss this one!!!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars life is full of kodak moments., August 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Buffalo Soldiers (Paperback)

buffalo soldiers is one of those books that i can't imagine having never read. not quite recommended to me, by a mate, who said "it's not a pretty read", i immediately ordered myself a copy.

i sat me down, late late at night, so late that it by rights should have been called morning. the cold light of a winter morning peeked in between the curtains as i snuggled in bed, and began a dark journey into the seedy world of skag, kodak film cannisters, life in an army barracks in germany ... i couldn't put the book down, and found myself inexorably bearing down on the ending...

i could see it coming, who wouldn't? but it nonetheless kept me enthralled right up until the last line.

reading it, whether simply the book itself, or the time at which i read it, changed my outlook on everything. there was a certain charm, a degenerate affection i grew to feel for the anti-hero, and in feeling it, i just had to admire o'connor for his abilities.

as my mate says, it's not a pretty read, but it is a good read.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buffalo Soldiers, May 4, 2000

By 

stuart crawford (Croydon, SURREY United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buffalo Soldiers (Paperback)

I first read this book five years ago, and enjoyed it immensely. Having read it again twice since, it was only the third time that it struck me as one of the finest novels about the absurdities of army life, perhaps only bettered by 'Catch 22' (Joseph Heller) and 'One to count cadence' (James Crumley). Like Heller, O'Connor seeks out all the intricacies of enlisted life, and the rawness of the book's content, coupled with the theme of drug abuse in the army make for an, at times, unsettling read. However, despite their obvious failings, one cannot help but like the characters in the book, nor fail to understand their obvious dissatisfaction with their lot in life. Elwood is the classic anti-hero, and you find yourself laughing out loud at some of his thoughts, remarks and deeds particularly at times when it seems inappropriate to do so. Indeed, that's where the beauty of this book lies. Ordinarily, the themes dealt with (drug abuse, disability, prostitution, racial tension) would be depressing enough to allow the reader to digest it only in small doses, but the scintillating dialogue, coupled with excellent scene-setting make for an exciting, rollercoaster ride that is nigh-on impossible to put down once begun. Much was made of the book's style, setting it in second-person perspective. The highest compliment I can pay it is that the only other novel I can recall that is written in this manner (Bright lights, big city by Jay McInerney) is totally outshone.

In short, buy this book, read it and love it. Then ask yourself why this guy hasn't written more!