Customer Reviews

Humidity Moon

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Michael Rodriguez' "Humidity Moon" tells the world how we lived, how we felt and how our buddies were closer to us than our own parents, brothers or sisters. It is a must to read, will take you back 30 yrs to a place that cost America a war and the Vietnamese their Nation

IT WAS MY HONOR TO HAVE SERVED WITH THIS ANGRY YOUNG MAN,A PROFESSIONAL IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.A GIFTED PERSONALITY AND GREAT MARINE SEMPER FI SGT. I.D.PADILLA tpidp@pacent.com

Let me strongly recommend the brand new work by Michael Rodriguez titled "Humidity Moon," published by Pecan Grove Press. Rodriguez presents the clear, respectful, experienced, but none-the-less limited vision of a Marine grunt. I say "limited" in that Rodriguez's first-person narrator is not omniscient; he does not look back with 20-20 hindsight. He sees what grunts saw and translates it into a grunt's reality. The horrid and the mundane of the infantrymam's war come through without apparent embellishment or elaboration. The crisp and simple prose is believable and powerful. It's hard to imagine that this author is writing three decades after his eyes saw, and his mind tried to comprehend, or turn away from, the incomprehensible facts of war. I am a Tim O'Brien fan, and Rodriguez's writing is VERY different, but just as good. This slim volume convinces me that some of that difference is that of an army soldier and a Marine. And I feel I have learned something I never knew about the meaning of being a Marine.

The writing is so powerful that I as a (stateside) veteran of the Vietnam war can barely read it. It is too realistic for the faint of heart. And heart-breaking for the sturdy. But this is how it was, and these stories have to be told and read. And the men (and women, in stories still untold) have to be remembered and honored.

Go with the Marines of Charlie Co. as they search the paddies and treelines of Vietnam for the feared, hated, respected and elusive enemy whom they refer to as the "little people". Experience the gut-twisting tension of moving through rain, fog, and night, or the smothering heat of day with every pore jittering on edge, listening, looking. From out of the things that could happen and the things that do happen, between the mistakes and the breaks, and from his memories of the men who die and the ones who live, Rodriguez has written a collection of short stories that ranks at the top, among the very best of writings about the Vietnam War. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what the War was for the men who fought it.

Chicano author Michael Rodriguez has written a seminal collection of stories about the American war in Viet Nam. If the great American novel is yet to be written, it may be Rodriguez, from deep in the U.S. Southwest we call Aztlan, who writes it. Orale, Michael. Si se puede.

With just a few words Michael Rodriquez, Marine rifleman in Vietnam, grabs you and drags you into the stinking, steaming jungles, the muddy, exposed paddies--into the heat and misery and gut-wrenching fear of a tour in Vietnam. With dialogue so powerful and immediate you can smell the fear-sweat and feel your belly clench in terror, Rodriquez brings you into his world. Whether he is reconning The Little Bridge, or walking point to Go Find White, or saddling up and Heading North, Rodriguez takes us with him right into his world of fear and uncertainty and blase' fatalism. With his signature narrative style and in-your-face realism, Mike Rodriguez opens a door on what it meant to be a grunt in Vietnam. An authentic, not-to-be-missed collection of realistic, powerful tales from a new writer with a first-hand point of view. An excellent source for teachers of the Vietnam experience, as well as an authentic source for people interested in understanding a bit more about the Vietnam era. And for those who are not teachers or students - a powerful, exciting, book. A terrific read!!!