The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story [Hardcover]

John Laurence (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

An evocative, vividly detailed memoir of the madness and miracles of the Vietnam War by an award-winning reporter whose experiences in combat-and whose relationship with a Vietnamese cat named Meo-have haunted and inspired him for more than twenty-five years. John Laurence covered the Vietnam War for CBS News from 1965 to 1970 and was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war. He lived with a squad of American soldiers in the jungles of War Zone C to produce an unforgettable documentary, The World of Charlie Company, which won every major award for broadcast journalism and also the George Polk memorial award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad. " Despite the professional acclaim, the traumatic stories Laurence covered became a personal burden that he brought home and carried long after the war was over. The result is this passionate memoir about what he witnessed there, laced with humor, anger, love, and the unforgettable story of a very idiosyncratic cat who was determined to play his part in the Vietnam revolution. In reconstructing his experiences, Laurence relied not only on his notes and memory and formidable literary skill, but on dozens of hours of film footage shot at the time, giving the book an uncanny power and fidelity to facts. The Cat from Hue is full of bizarre stories of unknown soldiers and famous journalists and generals, of incredible humanity and tenderness and also corruption and cowardice, of the worlds of the American grunt and of the Vietnamese civilian, and of the price of survival and sanity. Along the way, it clarifies the history of that murky war and illuminates the role that journalists played in it. This book will stand with Michael Herr's Dispatches, Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, and Ward Just's To What End as one of the best ever written about Vietnam.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With over half a decade of service as a war correspondent in Vietnam, John Laurence earned deserved accolades for his reportage, especially for his documentary The World of Charlie Company. In this superb book, The Cat from Hue, he returns to that time, drawing on long-buried memories to capture the confusion, deceit, and terror of the era.

In 1968, John Laurence unhappily found himself dodging bullets and poking among ruins of the ancient Vietnamese city of Hue, eventually wandering square into the sights of a gun held by a North Vietnamese soldier, who could easily have shot him dead but did not. It was not his first encounter with mortal danger, and not his last; as this long, intricately constructed memoir unfolds, death greets the reader on nearly every page, along with the more mundane facts of war--the language of soldiers, the things they carried, the numbed resignation to battle as "an edge against fear." (Superstition plays a role, too: Laurence figured that the "coins, charms, four-leaf clovers, religious medals and all kinds of talismans" that he kept with him would somehow shield him from bullets, as perhaps they did.) In the company of a shell-shocked kitten, the cat of his book's title, Laurence goes on to document the lives and deaths of young soldiers during the invasion of Cambodia, men who, though personally decent in the main, were part of "a monster that inflicted so much random violence and death it produced an entire new body of evil, a catalogue of cruelty that overshadowed any possible virtue that might have come from defeating the Communists."

Harrowing, sometimes hallucinatory, written from among the weeds and rubble, and one of the best in a crowded field, Laurence's book deserves the widest possible audience. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

The cat is the least of it in this terrific, if overlong, opus that evokes the Vietnam War from an on-the-ground TV correspondent's point of view. During the war, Laurence put in three tours of television duty in the war for CBS News. He provides riveting, searingly evocative depictions of the U.S. Army, Marines and South Vietnamese Army in action in the American war's early days (1965-1966), at its height (in 1968) and during the 1970 Cambodian incursion. Laurence and his crew specialized in covering the war up close, and he saw more than his share of action. His depiction of the bloody 1968 battle of Hue which Laurence accurately calls an "urban brawl between two armed and largely adolescent tribes, a street fight of fast action and merciless bloodletting" is frighteningly realistic. Laurence spices his extremely readable narrative with many direct quotes taken from his audio and videotapes of the fighting men in action and, later, as they reflect on the war and their parts in it. He also gives a clear picture of his day-to-day life in the war zone, along with revealing wartime portraits of many other Vietnam War correspondents and photographers, including Peter Arnett, Morley Safer, R.W. Apple Jr., Gloria Emerson and others. Aside from the unrevealing title, the only problem with this book is Laurence's penchant for cramming in vignettes, as if he couldn't bear to leave anything out, perhaps telling us too much about himself in the process. High on the superfluous list is virtually the entire cat story, which involved Laurence's adopting and shipping home a bedraggled feline he rescued from the battle of Hue. Buffs will be riveted, though as will anyone who survived the era. (Sept.)Forecast: Look for steady sales among regular readers of Vietnamiana and excellent coverage via Laurence's media cronies. Despite its size, this book is a possible breakout among boomers, if not among those on either end of the age spectrum.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 864 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; First Edition edition (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891620312
• ISBN-13: 978-1891620317
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,004,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressed, Much work went into this great book., January 21, 2002

By 

A. Wells (FT. Lewis Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Hardcover)

I served in the 101st Airborne Division, 3rd Brigade, 173rd Av Attack from 67-73. I served two tours of combat including the Cambodia campaign. I do agree with John on every account, I have no arguments, Yes there was a monster present, and situations got seriously out of hand. But this book is so much more than that, a comprehensive write that is right on the money. This book is the most factual record that I have witnessed on the public market, read this and you will be truly enlightened of this part of the war in Viet Nam.
I'd like to mention a book that is relative to this, and speaks of more conflict to come, a must read, SB 1 or God by Maddox

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "We left Viet Nam but it did not leave us.", April 22, 2002

By 

Peter X Collins (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Hardcover)

When all is said and done, Jack Laurence will be recognized as certainly the best television reporter to cover the Viet Nam war, if not one of the best reporters, period.

Yet I was prepared to be highly skeptical as I opened this book. As a CBS reporter who came to Viet Nam about a year after Jack Laurence left I had grave misgivings about how he and some of my colleagues had covered the war.

Although I still disagree with some of Jack's views, I find this to be a simply superb book, one that should be read by all Americans who have an interest in that war, and especially by those who are curious about the TV networks covered it.

This book is searingly honest and precise, so honest, in fact, that it will open up Jack to criticism from many who believe that "the press lost the war."

As a personal memoir, it is as good or better than such books as Michael Herr's "Despatches," Phil Caputo's "Rumor of War," and Jon Swain's "River of Time."

Because it has a much broader scope than those books, it may some day may be ranked among the very best books to come out of Vietnam.

As a Jack Laurence tells you in his opening author's note he and his ultra-cool cameraman -- Keith Kay -- recorded either on sound tape or on film tracks much of the dialog you read in the book. Jack also reconstructs from his notes much other dialog that is simply riveting. As one who also worked with some of the same people, I can say their voices as you hear them in this book are exactly as they spoke.

The voices of the Marines, soldiers, pilots, officers and grunts you hear in this book are absolutely authentic.

The detail is astonishing. If you want to know who it REALLY was like in Viet Nam, read this book. It is better than even the rave review it got from the New York Times, and the encomiums it has received from some of the famous names on the flyleaf. Read it. You'll find it hard to put down.

Peter Collins
Reporter, Viet Nam
20 June 1971 -- 29 April 1975

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peoples history of Vietnam, July 28, 2002

By 

Nancy S. Hatfield (Kirkland, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Hardcover)

Having spent two years in Vietnam as a sailor aboard a warship, I often spent time watching the war at a distance. Occasionaly we had to fight but it was usually artillary duels up north and then lunch. I never understood the war or why we were there or why men fight wars at all. I was usually at odds with superiors over the ethics of war but did my job nonetheless. For years I have searched the book shelves for a kindred spirit who could bring the experience to life and hold it at arms length long enough to examine it . Finally this book appears from nowhere and captures the esscense of young men in horrible situations. The most delicious aspect of the book is how bazzar incidents become common place. ( I once watched ten men die while I safely ate a sandwich and I was the only witness and I also finished the sandwich). Mr. Laurence has written a classic. He honors us all with his painfull discriptions of that debacle. It is also the first book that I have read that weaves the story of the Vietnamese people's desperate situation with our own. His honesty about the war and his own motives and reactions are a crucial ingredient. Read it. It is a jewel.