Why Are We in Vietnam? [Paperback]

Norman Mailer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1991

A novel about a hunting trip in Alaska which turns into an initiation rite. Vietnam is mentioned only once and the book can be seen either as an allegory or a symbolic psychic explanation of America’s fighting in Vietnam. The author has won the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award for Arts and Letters (1969) and the 14th Annual Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts, McDowell Colony (1973).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is impossible to walk away from this novel without being sharply reminded of the fact that Norman Mailer is a writer of extraordinary ability."—Chicago Tribune

"A shattering social commentary . . . The book is a tour de force, a treatise on human nature, society, and war in flip disguise."—Dallas News

"A book of great integrity. All the odd qualities are here: Mailer's remarkable feeling for the sensory event, the detail, 'the way it was,' his power and energy."—The New York Review of Books

"Original, courageous, and provocative."—The New York Times

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Among Norman Mailer's other achievements are The Naked and the Dead, The Armies of the Night, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1968, and The Executioner's Song, which won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (P) (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805018808
• ISBN-13: 978-0805018806
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,586,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive work on American machismo, September 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Are We in Vietnam? (Paperback)

Two raunchy, young Texans go to Alaska with their fathers to hunt bighorn sheep from a helicopter. Vietnam is mentioned in the last two sentences of the novel. If you can't figure out the relationship, you probably think that John Wayne was a great American hero ...
In a way, it's a pity that Mailer tied this story so closely to a specific war, because the book is powerfully relevant to Americans' view of themselves in many other historical contexts. But it's not a dull dissertation; it's entertaining, lively, and often hilarious. Still very much worth reading.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You won't 'get it' until you read this book., December 15, 2003

By 

Stephen D. Clements "Steve Clements" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Are We in Vietnam?: A Novel (Paperback)

When I got back from Vietnam in 1970, I sought out every voice I could find that might answer, for me, the question in the title.

And while it's important to know the politics and history and economics and all that jazz, I think the Final Key to understanding America's worst self-inflicted wound might be in this book.

This kid, D.J., belongs on the same shelf as Scout and Jeb in "Mockingbird" and Holden Caulfield in "Catcher" and Benjamin in "The Graduate", and that anonymous American Hero in "Red Badge of Courage."

They all say that our children have something important to teach us.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will hardly believe your eyes and ears, April 15, 2004

By 

IRA Ross (LYNDHURST, NJ United States 07071) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Are We in Vietnam?: A Novel (Paperback)

Two boys in their older teens, nicknamed D.J. and Tex, go with their corporate executive fathers on a hunting trip to Alaska. They all hope to carry home the heads of bears and other animals as trophies. Both boys, who are close friends, live in the lap of luxury with their families in Texas. Their excursion becomes a last fling before they enter the real world of adulthood and the horrible realities of Vietnam of the mid to late 1960s. The wooded environment into which they enter not only mesmerizes the boys, but proves to be as shocking as a pitcher of icy cold water being splashed in their faces. While in Alaska they experience nature, in all its beauty, grandeur, and horror. In part of their hunting trip they fly over the terrain in a helicopter; other times they walk carrying no weapons at all. Mailer also delves, often scurrilously I might add, into the adults' past sexual adventures with women, much of it probably fantasy and male braggadoccio. While there are some lulls in the beginning of the book, the action eventually starts to build and build and build until a crescendo is reached. In the wild, they discover, it is kill or be killed; it is the survival of the fittest. D.J. and Tex become caught up in this and D.J., especially, sees their relationship, fleetingly, in a sexually predatory way.

While becoming immersed in this whirlwind of a novel, I thought of the "The Deerhunter," a powerful film also addressing the issues of macho behavior against the backdrop of the War in Vietnam. Norman Mailer's novel, as good as it is, confirms many of my worst beliefs about male hubris, love of violence, and war.