Customer Reviews

Mash Goes to Maine

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"M*A*S*H Goes to Maine" is Richard Hooker's hilarious sequel to his classic book "MASH" and, for once, the sequel is better! Living a quiet life in Maine after the Korean War, doctors "Hawkeye" Pierce, "Duke" Forrest and "Trapper John" McIntyre are at it again, trying to establish a medical hospital while fighting the snobbiest doctors in America. Funny and very relaxing, you'll love "M*A*S*H Goes to Maine".

There are a lot of "MASH goes to..." books. This is the original and one of the best. The first sequel to MASH, this novel brings the characters from the original stateside. If you've read any of the other MASH goes to books (written by Richard Hooker and William E. Butterworth, though I strongly suspect except for lending his name, Hooker had nothing to do with) and were disgusted by how tedius and down-right horrible they were, don't let them put you off this book. This, along with MASH Mania, was written by Hooker himself and is every bit as good as the Butterworth books are bad.

I'm from Maine, and with only modest poetic exaggeration, Hooker gets it right. At least as it used to be. I knew characters such as he portrays--Hawkeye, the Simmons brothers, Wooden-leg Wilcox and all the rest. Only Marshall Dodge came as close to capturing the true old-time spirit of Down East.

This book is hysterical, factual and fictional at the same time. The original MASH author died a few years ago but had previously sold his series to another author. However, I can verify a lot of details about the book series because my father trained the author at a Veterans Hospital in East Orange, NJ and is referred to in the book as the "SOB chief of thoracic surgery" at the hospital. I am interested in getting a new copy so my kids can read it but don't have credit cards-maybe with other options-more people can enjoy this book-the MASH books are great as a collection or by the single book. The situations make for great reading, you can only benefit by rereading.

Without a doubt, one of the funniest and most original novels I've ever read. A brilliant mix of comedy and human drama with some throughly entertaining portrayals of Maine's "Down East" culture. Some entertaining 1950's - era medical insights as well. Read it -- if you can find it! You won't be disappointed.

It was with out a doubt one of the most touching (the Moose) books I have ever read. It is also laugh out loud funny

Donita

M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE was the first and best volume in what became a seemingly endless series of M*A*S*H GOES TO . . . novels.

Most of the subsequent volumes were written not by Richard Hooker, the author of the original M*A*S*H and this book, but by William Butterworth (though Hooker got author credit). The vast majority of the follow-up M*A*S*H books are marginally entertaining substandard toss-offs that rightfully deserve a "Young Adult" appellation (or would, except for their simplemindedly crude humor).

M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE is different. In many ways, it is actually funnier than the original M*A*S*H, burdened, as that novel was, with its very unfunny setting during the Korean War. Goof as you will, war just isn't amusing. But M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE is about what happens to Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke and Spearchucker in peacetime. (For fans of the TV show, Duke and Spearchucker only appeared in the earliest episodes.)

The four Army buddies all end up settling in Hawkeye's hometown of Crabapple Cove, Maine, where they work to establish The Finestkind Clinic and Fishmarket, a superior regional medical facility. They are opposed by the local "barber surgeons," led by Dr. Goofus MacDuff and Dr. Ramsay Coffin. Drs. MacDuff and Coffin are lining their pockets doing sloppy and unnecessary surgeries. Neither wants big-city professionally trained surgeons (Hawkeye and Trapper), nor Southerners (Duke), nor African Americans (Spearchucker) coming to town to make them look bad or ruin their racket.

Fortunately, the M*A*S*H alumni have allies, ranging from Dr. Doggy Moore, the crusty no-nonsense leading GP in the area, to Jocko Allcock, a grifter who works at the VA Hospital and has the ear of the Town Fathers, most of whom owe him for gambling debts.

M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE is replete with bizarrely colorful characters like Wooden Leg Wilcox, Bette Bang-Bang, Wrong-Way Napolitano, Lew The Jew Pierce, Reverend Titcomb, Moose Lord, Chipmunk Moore, and the like. The novel is crammed with unlikely adventures (in one, Reverend Titcomb becomes a world famous televangelist after Trapper John bombs the town with halibut and Wonderbread during a prayer meeting), but M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE also has its serious side (for example, Hawkeye loses an old friend to cancer despite his best efforts).

This is a short, light novel which despite its surface silliness actually touches on issues like the postwar evolution of cardiac surgery, racial prejudice, rural poverty, and social change in America. You'll laugh out loud for sure, but like me, you'll remember this book forever. It really is that impressive.

I am sorry, but I do not agree with any of the negitive reviews that have been posted about the MASH goes to series of books. I own the complete series and love re-reading them. While, here I do agree. they are not the worlds best written books, they are however some of the funniest book that I have ever read.
If you are of average intelligence and want to read a book that will leave you with your sides split open, your stomach hurting and your eyes soaking wet, from the tears of laughter, then these books are for you.
Starting with MASH goes to Maine, were you can find Hawkeye and Trapper John trying to get funding for the "Findest Kind Fish Market and Madical Center" while playing golf with the money man, only to have the game intrupted by the sight of Duke Forrest chasing Spearchucker Jones across the fairway with a bloodhound and a .12 gage shotgun to MASH goes to New Orleans, where Frank Burns is telling a convention of fellow Vascecimie (?) surgons that he was General McCarthers "Personel Physician" were Hawkeye, Trapper John, Father Mulchahee and Hotlips Hollihan set the record straight, to MASH goes to Paris and the riot at Orley Field between the Gharmdairm International, the Byoue Pourdee (?) Council of the Kights of Columbus and Hotlips homosexual church Accapella Choir to MASH goes to Moscow where Bob Alexander (AKA Boris Alexandravich) "The Worlds Greatest Tenor" is being honored by the leader of the Soviet Union, every each and book will leave you breathless from laughing so hard.
The only problem that I found with the series was that unless you had read every book that was written before hand, you could not understand all of the charicters and how they interact with each other in that book you are reading.
My only wish is that the series be re-printed as in todays too serious world, there are not many books that take pokes at everyone and everything that the MASH series has done.

It came timely. It was in great shape. I'm 100% pleased with my experience.

The Maine woods are never the same after being visited by Hawkeye and Trapper John.