War Boys [Hardcover]

M A. Schaffner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

This novel tells a unique story of America's overseas empire at its apogee and of the coming of age of a group of boys as well as of their entire nation.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

With all the flashy metafiction flying off the presses these days, it's a pleasure to read a good, old-fashioned bildungsroman. In the first novel from poet Schaffner, it's 1968 and 14-year-old Charles Barker finds himself transferred with his officer father to the U.S. naval station at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Joining the local Explorer Scouts post, the reserved, intellectual youth--who enjoys studying famous battles and reenacting them with painted lead figurines--begins gaining real-life experience as the troop, with nominal adult supervision, marches into the jungle to stage mock military exercises. War, both real and pretend, permeates the eloquently described, jungle-draped setting, and Schaffner makes keen study of the institutions that wage it. He has a vivid recollection of the way teenaged boys interact, and we believe most of it when they emulate their fathers by speaking tough, Hollywood soldierese. Occasionally, however, the liberal author can't help slipping his message into their lines, or into the narrative, despite having done a perfectly good job of making it apparent through action. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

With all the flashy metafiction flying off the presses these days, it's a pleasure to read a good, old-fashioned bildungsroman -- BOOKLIST

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Welcome Rain Publishers; First edition. edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566492440
• ISBN-13: 978-1566492447
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,552,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Military brat sounds off, December 23, 2002

By 

Greg Bemis (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Boys (Hardcover)

All the reviews have not mentioned one aspect of the book "War Boys", which is the coming of age by military brats. This story could have been about me as I travelled from one end of the world to another, following my father. No mention is made of Mr. Shaffner's background, but he is right on the mark. You arrive at a new assignment, you make friends with whomever is available, and you watch them come and go. Kudos to Mr. Schaffner for revealing a population that is often misunderstood by civilians. Hopefully he can produce another novel of a similar genre in the near future.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Separate Peace" for the Vietnam Era, July 26, 2003

By 

Joseph W. Miller (Tulsa, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: War Boys (Hardcover)

I enjoyed the book and was surprised it was a first novel. I agree with the other reviewers (including comments re the jarring nature of the profanity and some of the rough spots in the book), so I will be brief. For anyone interested in a view of the Philippines during World War II, I recommend James Webb's superb "The Emperor's General." For an immensely readable nonfiction account of U.S.-Philippines relations I recommend the award-winning "In Our Image."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finely wrought story of an unsentimental education., September 29, 2002

By 

Miles D. Moore (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: War Boys (Hardcover)

M.A. Schaffner's novel "War Boys" is on its surface the straightforward story of Charles Barker, a boy during the Vietnam War, spending his early teen years on the Naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines where his father is stationed. In clear and finely detailed prose, Schaffner relates the adventures of Charles and his buddies in Boy Scout Explorer Troop 360, putting themselves through various hair-raising rites of passage in the Philippine jungle, groping toward manhood in an atmosphere in which being a man means constantly having to prove yourself. It is only in the last quarter of the book that Schaffner's real purpose becomes plain. By slow degrees, Charles and his friends discover that the Navy--which represents all they know of life and the future to which they aspire--regards them not as potential recruits, but potential enemies. Schaffner is a poet as well as a novelist, and his first novel demonstrates the subtle art of a poet. It was a master stroke to show the upheavals wrought by the Vietnam War and the rise of the Youth Culture thrrough the eyes of a young boy caught between the two extremes; the resulting indirection gives the poignancy of innocence betrayed a tremendous impact at novel's end. Schaffner is an author who never raises his voice; most of the major tragedies in "War Boys" occur offstage, but are all the more powerful for that. "War Boys" is a novel that reads and feels like the ebb and flow of life; there is not a single character or event in it that feels contrived, and above all Schaffner paints a bracingly accurate portrait of what boys in their early teens actually say, do, and think. "War Boys" lacks the fireworks that would make it a bestseller, but one can see a small, devoted cult gathered round it in future years, in appreciation of its subtle artistry.