Customer Reviews

Paco's Story: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Paco's Story" is an outstanding addition to the canon of fiction about the American soldier's experience in Vietnam. Its additional contribution lies in its exploration of the challenges facing the veteran upon his return to the U.S.

The novel is unsparing in its criticism of a country that was all to eager to send young men off to fight in a controversial war in the jungles of Southeast Asia, but not so enthusiastic about dealing with them when they returned, wounded both physically and psychically. The novel also presents a world in which the soldiers on both sides are dehumanized by guerilla warfare and surrender to evil.

What is Paco's story? It's a story of a grunt who survives a firestorm attack that kills all of his comrades; who clings to life desperately in a hospital far from home; who returns to the States with a cane and a complex of scars disfiguring his body; who lives day in and day out with the knowledge that he lived a life in Vietnam that he can explain to almost no one on the planet.

We see him arrive in a small town via bus, looking for work. We watch him encounter fellow Americans who haven't a clue about what he has endured on their behalf and who do not appear to want to know. We return with him to experience the drudgery and brutality of life in a faraway land and the horrible day that changed his life forever. We listen to him commune with the ghosts of the men with whom he fought in Vietnam.

Finally, we see him depart the town as suddenly as he came, having discovered that a girl upon whom he has spied and fantasized sees him as a disgusting freak.

This is a bitter, eloquent novel that reminds us that we should never forget the soldiers who paid dearly for their service to the country. The wounds they suffered overseas should never be compounded by wounds inflicted by their own countrymen.

This book gives a glimpse into the toll that war takes on those who survive. No one but those who endure it can truly fathom the horrors of PTSD, but for the rest of us who want to understand, this book is the best I've read yet. Paco wanders through his life finding some solace in washing dishes in a small diner in Texas, losing himself in his work and barely surviving mentally from day to day. The style of writing drew me into Paco's suffering. Although it is fiction, it is written by a Vietnam vet and left me wondering how many Pacos there are among us. His story is one that may well haunt you long after the final page is read.

Paco's Story, while revolving around a fantasy, is full of the reality of a bloody mindless war. The book goes well beyond just scenes of combat into the mind and heart of a survivor who believes he should have joined his buddies in the afterlife. Heineman relays fictional accounts of a tour in the jungle against the coming home of a mangled vet. It is at times astounding. At others, heartbreaking. An excelent descent into the horror of this war.
Ron Lealos author of Don't Mean Nuthin'

Paco's Story is about young Paco Sullivan. Sole survivor of his unit's ambush, he has returned to the States to look for work. Left with painful injuries that require powerful painkillers every day, Paco encounters both curiousity and discrimination from the locals in the small town he ends up in.

Paco's story is written with graphic, lyrical language that brings his horrific war memories, and his trying to fit in as a veteran of a war that nobody really understood, to life. Heinemann writes in an unusual, dream-like way that just draws the reader in, until they feel like they are feeling what Paco feels. He writes of Paco's seemingly mundane experiences and transforms them into something cathartic. A must read for anyone interested in Nam.

When I first started this book, I had to put it down for a few days and read something else. The rambling "device" at first put me off as annoying. I warmed to the unusual style, however, on the second try and was amply rewarded. As a Vietnam veteran I can be easily offend with the "loser" image of a returned veteran. But this is misleading. Paco is severely wounded and simply wants to work hard (most likely a penitent) and be left alone. He finds his safe harbor in Ernest, the owner of the Texas Lunch diner, where he washes dishes (washing away his sins, yes yes I get it). Ernest's ramblings about combat on Iwo and Guadalcanal add a great coda and understanding. Heinemann really brings these characters to life, especially the talk about combat and how they feel. The most intriguing character is Jesse, another vagabond Viet vet who stops for dinner. As I am also a former paratrooper, Jesse's rantings and observations are priceless. Pay attention to what Jesse says about the "proposed" Vietnam Memorial. Understand Scruggs's idea came about in March 1979, with Heinemann publishing excerpts of this book starting in 1979 (winning the Book Award in 1987). But Cathy gives us a view of how others see us, no matter how unfair that may be. Cathy at first sees Paco as "cute" then "ugly" as she observes him night after night with his nightmares. What Paco reads in Cathy's diary is what many civilians felt about us deep down and their refusal to help in reintegration. One final unrelated note: one reviewer of this book may be unaware that Caputo served in Vietnam, whereas Clancy never served in the military. Heinemann is the real deal, with characters very real to me and my experiences.

Paco Sullivan arrives in the town of Boone on a bus, without two dollars to his name. He's the physically and psychically devastated sole survivor of a fire fight in Vietnam, his wounds so bad that the medic who first treated him demanded a transfer and gradually drank his own life away. The America that Paco returned to is profoundly disinterested in his wartime experiences. Young people seem not to even know about the war and older folks, like Ernest Monroe, an ex-Marine veteran of Iwo Jima, who gives Paco a job washing dishes at his Texas Lunch diner, are more interested in telling him their own war stories.

Paco is haunted by memories of Vietnam and, quite literally, by the spirits of his dead fellow soldiers--in fact, they narrate the book. As he tries to put together a "normal" life, his continual immersion in the dishwashing sink seems to represent an attempt to wash away past sins--atrocities committed during the war--and a kind of rebirth through baptism. He gradually develops a strange voyeuristic relationship with Cathy, the flirtatious niece of the owners of the Geronimo Hotel, where he's staying. But in the end, the dynamic between them turns out to be something very different than what he believes it to be and as the story ends he gets back on the bus and heads out of town.

This isn't a bad novel by any means, and it's certainly better than Toni Morrison's Beloved, which it rather notoriously beat out for the National Book Award, but I found that much of it simply didn't work for me. The unusual narrative device, of letting the dead speak, quickly loses it's charm and becomes sort of artificial and intrusive. It becomes especially distracting during passages where the spirit guide renders Paco's thoughts and feelings. The story itself is kind of an amalgam of clichés from the popular culture's rather deranged view of the war. In particular, there's one scene in which he participates in a gang rape that is purely obligatory, rather than growing organically out of the story. The author is a Vietnam veteran, so I'm hesitant to simply dismiss it as pandering, but one senses that it is there because Heinemann thinks the reader expects it to be.

The odd narrative structure, Paco's lack of any life outside of his mundane job, and the derivative nature of the war scenes, all serve to prevent us from feeling any connection with Paco. Talk of fictional personae coming to life on the page is relatively silly, but these factors continually remind us that he's merely a character. To a degree, we admire the inner drive that keeps him moving forward, but we have no idea where it comes from or why he keeps on. Ultimately, this is the only occasionally affecting story of a survivor whose survival, though admirable in itself, fails to convey any broader meaning to the reader.

GRADE : C+

Paco's story has some clever conceits: there is the narrator, who only reveals himself slowly and carefully, as a ghost from Paco's decimated company in Vietman, and appears to have some companion who he calls James; but we are never told who James is, and why it is necessary for the narrator to tell him Paco's tale. Paco himself is a type of ghost. For the protagonist of an entire novel, we get extremely little insight about Paco qua Paco. Even his odd name, Paco Sullivan, hints at some wider, more humorous story, which is never exploited in this novel. Paco acts more like a ghoul than the narrator, who in compelling ways, is more fleshed out than Paco. We know Paco is wounded physically and psychologically, but we never get his own voice. It is reflected through others, but it lacks immediacy. Yet even with this vital flaw, Paco's story is a moving elegy to war, its victims, both dead and alive, and the confounded human ability to forget the horrible price of waging war itself. And as a Vietnam novel, Paco's Story catches the cadences and vocabulary of the war with great nuance. Again, a novel like this illustrates the great power in writing vernacular slang with dexterity and skill.

Larry Heinemann provided his readers with an exceptional Vietnam novel. It is exceptional because, unlike most novels about that tragic era, it contains a very important moral. The extremely brutal rape of a Viet Cong woman by Paco and his comrades causes them to acquire a negative karma that will only be removed when they are destroyed. Alpha Company paid the price...

Fire Base Harriette was supposedly a safe place. Only Paco would survive the devastating fire attack which took place. He did not, however, escape his fate. Crippled, scarred for life, Paco must deal daily with the payback for his actions. He is in a constant state of physical discomfort. His sleep is usually disturbed with horrible nightmares. Worst, perhaps, of all, has been the reduction of his life quality to that of an inanimate object. The people who come into contact with Paco can see no further than his disabilty and scars.

"Paco's Story" is quite readable and presents a realistic appraisal of karmic law. Mr. Heinemann has penned a book which will never be limited by its time-frame. It is a story with a very clear moral: "what goes around comes around."

This book worked for me. I was drawn into a life, a sad unremarkable life on the outside but a life filled with courage and dignity inside. Paco has a story so horrific, so painful that he can't share it with anyone but the dead who haunt him. He can't escape his experiences or his pain. He can't comprehend why he is still alive. He can't relate to those living ordinary lives. He cannot share his terrible story. He is going through the motions of living on the "outside" but really living to deal with his inner demons.

Paco's story powerfully shows the alienation of soldiers from society when they come home. It shows the gulf-too wide to be bridged between the GI and the ordinary person. It shows the indifference and lack of interest the average person has in what was sacrified or what a soldier has gone through. It is also a story about the brutalization of men-forced to kill and commit unspeakable acts of violence. Paco's story is told in a simple way, yet is packed with universal truths. It is hard to look at these truths even in a book. I wept for Paco and my brother and the other maginalized veterans. I'm re reading the book and its even more powerful the second time around or I'm just understanding more.

PACO'S STORY is the definitive novel of the Vietnam "conflict" as told from the point of view of a lowly soldier in the thick of the fight.

Author Larry Heinemann's use of language is so lyrical that the prose here has a rhythm that is musical. His descriptions are graphic enough that the reader almost can smell the blood, hear the screams, taste the fear.

At times, PACO'S STORY is painful to read, but that is a direct consequence of Heinemann's mastery of the topic. This novel deservedly won the National Book Award.

PACO'S STORY is as significant report of the Vietnam era as CATCH-22 was of World War II.