The Long Walk [Hardcover]

George La Fountaine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 20, 1986

This PEN award Winner for Best Regional Fiction is a searing, heart rendering story of one American soldier's arduous odyssey from captivity to civilization and sanity.
One dreary. drizzling morning in 1973, months after the last American POW has been released from Vietnam, the Vietcong deliver a bedraggled man bound in wire to Corpsman Stanley Baker. The prisoner's name is Lieutenant William Hill and he's a former star quarterback and one of the Navy's best and brightest. The Pentagon assumed Hill died in a crash nine year's earlier in North Vietnam--now they learn he's very much alive.
What goes on in the mind of a man held prisoner for nine years? What is the sum effect of endless months of bamboo cages, beatings--and torture?
Sergeant Baker soon realizes that Hill's unlike other POWs. Hill doesn't speak and hoards food, and he seems to be searching for a way to escape the hospital.
As Baker and his superiors soon discover, Hill may have been released but his long walk home has just begun.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This novel describes the arduous journey back to sanity of a disturbed veteran of the Vietnam War. Air ace Lieutenant William Hill has returned to freedom after nine years as a prisoner of war. Why does Hill continue to try to escape now that he is free? Why does he refuse to talk? For much of its length, the book is noticeably contrived, vacillating between thriller and human interest story. At heart, though, it is a restrained depiction of the personal cost of this tragic war; its gimmicky plot only gets in the way. The novel would have been stronger if the author had just trusted to his story. David Keymer, Dean of Students, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (June 20, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399131302
• ISBN-13: 978-0399131301
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,536,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "One terrific novel: an arduous journey from captivity to freedom", December 14, 2011

By 

Max Read - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: THE LONG WALK (Kindle Edition)

"The Long Walk" was written by author George La Fountaine (1986). Mr. Fountaine is the author of several other novels including "Two-Minute Warning" and "Flashpoint". Among his many accomplishments, he is also known as a cinematographer. Selected novels have been made into movies. Consolidated biographical information on Mr. La Fountaine appears otherwise limited.

This novel is of the Literary Fiction genre and human interest drama. The story is told by an anonymous narrator. Character dialog is interspersed with narration and directly attributable to the person speaking. The prose is not complex but is rich in imagery and elegantly constructed. The electronic version of the novel contains a good deal of grammatical and spelling errors. The errors are obvious and while annoying don't markedly detract from the reading experience.

"The Long Walk" was written and published just over a decade of the ending of the Vietnam War. The opening scenes find Lieutenant William Hill, a POW for over nine years and the last POW in Vietnam, being turned over to Corpsman Stanley Baker. It becomes obvious that Hill has been beaten and savaged by his captors to the point of insanity and repatriation seems an impossible task. Born of a Navajo father, Stanley Baker has a special compassion for Hill and assumes a dedicated effort to help him. In the Navajo culture there was a period during the westward expansion when the entire Navajo tribe was moved to Fort Sumter. As it turned out, the tribe was eventually allowed to return to their home land but they were forced to walk the three hundred miles to get there. Many died and the experience was harbored in legend as "The Long Walk", a testament to a determination to survive in spite of overwhelming odds; so began The Long Walk for Lieutenant Hill.

This is a story so well told it rivals all for a position as a truly memorable work. The plot development is exceptionally well done. The characters are wonderfully developed and the reader will come away entranced by the persons of Branch, Adjiba and Stanley. The novel's theme of survival under the most adverse of situations is brought clearly to view in the nature of the remarkable characters; not the least of which is the protagonist of the story.

I highly recommend this novel to readers and rate it "Memorable". This novel belongs in the lofty 1% of exceptional works.