Nam-A-Rama [Hardcover]

Phillip Jennings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2005

Everybody knows War is Hell. Only the Few and the Proud know what fun Hell can be.

Here it is, folks: "How the cow ate the cabbage" in the CLASSIFIED words of the President hisself [sic]. TOP SECRET stuff. EYES ONLY. If you want to know the real story (and you know you do)-

Nam-A-Rama is Catch 22 meets "Apocalypse Now." It's the wildest, wackiest, saddest and truest war story ever told, because it's all made-up, which means it's all real-from the oatmeal dropped on the VC (the Marines won't eat it) to the naked movie star parachuting into Hanoi; from the jarhead who calls in air strikes from a Bangkok brothel to the "Sky-Kyke" who fills out the Marine Corps' diversity quota; from the businessmen demanding a long inventory-reducing war to the Pentagon brass hoping for a glorious medal-worthy one; from the locals who'll do anything for a Yankee dollar to the grunts nobody ever asked and never will.

It starts and ends, like all the best adventures, in the air. Almost-Captain Gearheardt and his buddy, Almost-Captain Armstrong, are ferrying bodies (live in, dead out) for the CIA's Air America, but they have never forgotten their TOP SECRET orders, given when Gearheardt was delivering pizzas to the Oval Office for the CIA: Chopper into Hanoi and buy Uncle Ho a beer. Then either shoot his ass or shake his hand (the instructions get vague at this point).

And so they do, Semper Fi, pausing only to get an aircraft carrier black-flagged for bubonic plague, have an affair with Mickey Mouse, cleverly decode the message sewn into a lusty spy's black panties, commandeer a Russian truck complete with a midget Chinese 'Uncle Sam,' avenge themselves on a Cuban torturer, and dutifully experience all the Honor and Glory of the next-to-the-next-to-last war that never (God forbid) made the Nightly News.

And they do it all for laughs. Because if they were to stop laughing, where would the heartache end?

Phillip Jennings' unpredictable novel of Vietnam is an American classic in the making, a not-so-longing look at the absurdity of a war in which the damned and the innocent share the same hootch, the same Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes even the same body-bag. You won't stop laughing, or thinking.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Published as the military and its actions abroad are under intense scrutiny, this highly entertaining, provocative lampooning of the Vietnam War is reminiscent of Catch-22 and David Mamet's Wag the Dog. Marine helicopter pilot Gerard Finnigan Gearheardt, in the Oval Office on CIA pizza delivery duty ("They don't let freckle-faced teenagers deliver pizza to the White House, you know"), overhears President Larry Bob Jones and the Joint Chiefs of Staff brainstorming the idea of escalating the American advisory presence in Vietnam into a full-fledged shooting war to enhance Larry Bob's image and beef up a flagging peacetime economy. To make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, Larry Bob concocts a loony-tunes scheme to parachute Gearheardt and his buddy Lt. Jack Armstrong, along with antiwar movie sex kitten Barbonella, into Hanoi to meet with Ho Chi Minh and negotiate peace just in time to get Larry Bob reelected. The two hapless Marines rendezvous with Barbonella, but, thanks to the meddling of an American agent and a Cuban operative, the zany scheme goes haywire and Armstrong and Gearheardt wind up flying for the CIA in Laos. In this wonderfully irreverent novel, evocative of vintage Max Shulman, hearty belly laughs contrast with chilling insights into high level political machinations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Jennings, a former marine and Air America pilot and a sometime CIA operative, gives us a story about a couple of Air America flyers who are recruited by the U.S. president and the CIA to embark on a secret mission into South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. But this isn't your typical Vietnam novel; it's a satire, a comedy of war, with a blatantly racist president, a beautiful movie star turned antiwar activist, and a couple of antiheroes (Jack Armstrong and his impulsive, quite possibly insane pal, Gearhardt) who just want to keep themselves in one piece. Although some elements of the book are a little obvious--the movie star, Barbonella, is clearly based on Jane Fonda, star of Barbarella--Jennings generally approaches this broad satire with a surprising amount of delicacy and subtlety. The book is sure to be compared to Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, but that may not be entirely fair. Jennings is telling his own story, in his own voice, and the novel earns the right to stand on its own satirical feet. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; First Edition edition (February 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765311208
• ISBN-13: 978-0765311207
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,168,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Childhood, then finance degree from top cow college, masters (almost) in pre-Colombian Art at Universidad de Mexico,Former Marine pilot, CIA pilot, business stuff of awesome irrelevance. Fell out of office chair afflicted with near terminal boredom. Started writing. Still writing. Found satire best to apply basic wiseguy material and not get sued.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars at last, the Great Vietnam War Novel!, March 11, 2005

By 

Daniel Ford (at danford dot net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nam-A-Rama (Hardcover)

The story is set in motion by a president who greatly resembles Lyndon Johnson. We probably know too much about LBJ for wild satirical riffs: For all his faults, he didn't launch the Vietnam War at a pizza party. Still, the novel's early scenes set the tone. "Nam-a-Rama" soon takes flight, its plot veering wildly, darkly and amusingly as we follow the exploits of the narrator, Almost Capt. Jack Armstrong, and his mad buddy, Almost Capt. Gearheardt.

At one point, Armstrong is assigned as air officer to a Marine infantry company in Vietnam, calling in bombs and shells to keep the grunts from being overrun. For a chapter or two, we're persuaded that ground combat -- with its death, fear, heroism, profanity and stink -- is a weird joke played upon humans by the immortals. God, in Mr. Jennings's telling, wears a cashmere sweater and loud pants and is in a hurry to get on with his golf game.

Portraying the absurdity and grotesque oddity of war, Mr. Jennings rivals his hero, Joseph Heller, to whose World War II novel "Nam-a-Rama" clearly pays tribute. (Like Heller, Mr. Jennings mines his personal experience -- he was a U.S. Marine and Air America helicopter pilot in Southeast Asia.) The story eventually moves from battle to back channels: At the behest of President Larry Bob, the two almost-captains go to Hanoi to strike a deal with Ho Chi Minh, or perhaps to kill him. They might even accomplish their mission -- whatever it is -- were it not for Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who has been studying "Catch-22" in the belief that it represents America's strategic guide for the Vietnam War.

"Nam-a-Rama" culminates -- as real life often does -- in a confusion of motives, misdeeds and unintended consequences. But all to wonderful comedic effect. Then, at the last, Mr. Jennings limns his japes with a tribute to the men who fought in Vietnam, especially to the Marines, in words so beautiful that they brought tears to my eyes. Rarely does a novelist storm the emotional ramparts so decisively.

Buy it. Read it. Keep it in your library. It's the Great Vietnam War Novel.

-- Dan Ford

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A romp through the Vietnam War from the Gulf of Tonkin through Tet., February 19, 2007

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nam-A-Rama (Hardcover)

While I do not read much fiction anymore, I do enjoy certain types of stories. This is a comic romp that is based in Vietnam (or Viet Nam, if you prefer) during the Johnson years, but it takes enough liberties with reality that the clear parody of Johnson is only referred to as President or Larry Bob. Nixon is called by name, but McNamara is referred to by his characteristic slicked back hair.

The story is told by Jack Armstrong (the character is well aware of the ironic use of his name) and tells the tale of his adventures with his friend Gearheardt (did that name start is Gearhead?). Gearheardt is a CIA pilot who was, at one time the CIA pizza delivery guy to the Whitehouse. He ends up, on a secret mission that will take place is some unspecified future with cloudy goals in Hanoi. Jack is a Marine helicopter pilot who befriends Gearheardt and they head off on their adventure together. One thing that you have to pay attention to is that the story is told by Armstrong and you have to wonder how he would know some of the things about Gearheardt. And you will also note that Gearheardt's reality gets awfully foggy at times.

While waiting for the signal that it is time to head north, they are involved in actual combat and rescue operations In Country that are told with breath taking clarity. The author, Philip Jennings, was much like Jack Armstrong in being a Marine helicopter pilot and doing work for Air America. I don't know if he actually knew guys like Gearheardt, but I am sure he did, because there were crazed heroes (hard to tell which at times) like him in higher quantity than one might suspect. Read any book on SOG or special forces operations in Vietnam and you will find the pages full of them.

This book has some tremendously funny scenes. One I can talk about without ruining the plot for you is a scene where a skipper is trying to synchronize watches for his team, but can't remember what his watch is synchronized with because he has a second watch synchronized with the artillery that is set to a slightly different time. It turns out that none of the other team members even bothered to bring their watch to the briefing.

Jennings writes wonderfully well. He writes adventure with sharpness and with great humor. In talking about night flying operations on a carrier Armstrong notes, "Baxter used to say the only good thing about night flying off the boat was that it gave him a chance to s**t his pants and not get teased about it." Note, that the language of the book is, well, frank. No asterisks to be found anywhere. And several, well, many scenes, involve bars with the kinds of inhabitants that one might expect that soldiers would seek out including women who don't bother with clothes for obvious reasons.

I loved this sentence, it captured the horror of the situation with the kind of detachment war demands, "A nice friendly kid who would later make the fatal mistake of flying a burning helicopter upside down with bullets in his body."

In another place, Jack says, "I hadn't had butterflies in my stomach for a long time, but when the choppers carrying the company that I was attached to fell toward the strike zone at 0730 the next morning, the butterflies were giant fanged bats fighting each other." Beautifully put.

The book has a pretty cynical view of the war overall, but not of the men who fought it. It involves the protagonists in bizarre situations that are either harrowing or delightfully nuts. The author shows us the ambiguity that seems to be the reality of life as a spy, and some of the awful things these folks suffer (as well as what they do).

I enjoyed this book a great deal. If you enjoy funny adventures with some bite to them, you will enjoy this, too.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, thoughtful, well written - Great Book!, February 22, 2005

By 

Amy Rivers "book gnome" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nam-A-Rama (Hardcover)

I thought Nam-A-Rama was hilarious - though quite tragic. I thoroughly enjoyed following the story of the hapless lead and his pal on a series of misadventures, taking them through Vietnam and introducing them to a variety of crazy characters that either help them - or don't - along the way. Consequently, Nam-A-Rama is an interesting look at the motivations for war and the effect that it has on those involved. I would recommend this book to anyone - any generation, men or women...I think its a great read, very entertaining and will certainly lend some perspective to many current events.