Victor Padrini: A Novel of the United States Air Force Academy [Paperback]

Mark Pizzimenti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 1998

Victor Padrini is a novel of the United States Air Force Academy an allegory of the modern military in the post Cold War, corporate age.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Victor Padrini is the story of a passionate young man who quickly sees the imperfections of his own life, and the imperfections of a system touted to be beyond reproach; but this is more than one young man's journey into adulthood and initiation into a military brotherhood. This is the story of a soul inquiring about its very reason for existing." -- Major Hector Chavez

About the Author

Mark Pizzimenti was born in 1971 and raised in South Florida through 1989. He attended the United States Air Force Academy and was commissioned in 1993. Serving a four-year service obligation as a satellite operator and crew commander, he resigned his commission in 1997. Mark wrote Victor Padrini between 1993 and 1998. He has also written Love, Hate and Happy Life; two novels which are also forthcoming. Currently, he lives a quiet and reticent life in Colorado enjoying the solitude of the Rocky Mountains.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Acedia Press (November 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966663500
• ISBN-13: 978-0966663501
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,642,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars the names have been changed to protect the guilty, December 8, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victor Padrini: A Novel of the United States Air Force Academy (Paperback)

As a fellow graduate of USAFA, I can relate closely with many of the sub-plots in Victor Padrini. Perhaps that is because almost none of the stories Mr. Pizzimenti tells are fiction. Be that as it may, the author appears to express these events accurately. His criticisms of a system rife with contradictions and unfairness are right on the money.

However, anyone looking for a complete survey of the Academy will not find it here. I cannot speak for the author, but, despite many negative memories, I also benefited from the academy experience. At the academy, I learned how to leader, developed the ability to think and act under pressure, honed my time management skills, and established many life-long friendships. I also witnessed a desire of many Academy officials to make real reforms.

USAFA was certainly a flawed institution when I attended, and I wouldn't be surprised if graduates of other universities feel the same way about their alma maters. Mr. Pizzimenti's book should indeed be read by anyone considering attending one of the service academies, but they should also try to discover some of the benefits of an academy education before making a decision. The more a candidate understands the school before signing up, the less likely he or she will be to suffer from the same dilemmas of Victor Padrini.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The truth hurts, October 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Victor Padrini: A Novel of the United States Air Force Academy (Paperback)

This book is about Mark Pizzimenti's senior year at the Air Force Academy. The book is labeled as fiction, but it is only fiction in so much as the names have been changed--and in some cases the names are very similar.

It is impossible to fully appreciate this book unless you too have attended a service academy. I first read the book as a junior at the academy. I'm now a senior and the similarities between his experience and mine are striking. It is for this reason that this book should be considered non-fiction. I can find nothing in this book that doesn't happen here still, eight years later.

If one wants to find out what USAFA is all about, read the propaganda, the admissions literature, and all the rest--but definitely read this book.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Prozac?, May 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Victor Padrini: A Novel of the United States Air Force Academy (Paperback)

I found this book extremely disappointing. No plot to speak of, and the author's jump from idealistic pre-candidate (in the italicized introduction) to bitter, cynical upperclassman (the rest of the book) was totally without transition. How'd he get there? Moreover, the author's writing style was tedious and didactic, and most of the dialogue was thinly disguised philosophical ranting. I was not surprised to read that the author wrote it in his early 20s, as it had that unmistakable "I'm a young guy infatuated with my first brush with philosophy" tinge. (Camus did it a lot better.) I also came away guessing that the author suffers from clinical depression and had a major depressive episode at the Air Force Academy (much talk of withdrawal from others, hopelessness, disillusionment, etc.), so that this was a book loosely describing one person's descent into serious depression rather than capturing the purported hypocrisy and emptiness of an institution. For those interested in good fiction about the service academies, with much better writing and some of the same themes, I would recommend (1) A Sense of Honor (James Webb); (2) The Return of Philo T. McGiffen (David Poyer); (3) Honor and Duty (Gus Lee); (4) Dress Gray (Lucian K. Truscott IV); (5) The Lords of Discipline (Pat Conroy).