On the Yankee Station [Mass Market Paperback]

William Boyd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1985

Adolescent sex in a Scottish boys' public school ...Oddballs on the seedy side of America ...Murder in a quiet Devon cottage ...Comical, ironical or lacerating - wit is the keynote of these stories, which include two early adventures from the career of Morgan Leafy, glorious anti-hero of William Boyd's prize-winning novel "A Good Man in Africa". 'His writing, with nods in the direction of Borges and Nabokov, combines violence, comedy and experiment ...an impressively varied collection' - "Time Out".

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Boyd seems singularly blessed with both an innate love of storytelling and the talent to render those stories in swift, confident prose."?Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.

From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (November 1, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140060871
• ISBN-13: 978-0140060874
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,332,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Boyd is the author of ten novels, including A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Any Human Heart, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet; and Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than a short story, March 25, 2008

By 

Philip Spires "Author of Mission, an African ... (La Nucia, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Yankee Station: Stories (Paperback)

On The Yankee Station by William Boyd is a series of short stories, the longest of which provides the title for the set. This particular story is a superb piece of short fiction, much more than a short story, confronting, in less than twenty-five pages, several big issues and, at the same time, drawing its characters in considerable, complex detail.

Set on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War, it describes the antagonistic relationship between two crew members. Pfitz is a pilot, conscious of and grateful for his perceived and actual status, a status he does not hesitate to assert to his advantage. But this tendency is sometimes exercised to excess. It is as if he needs to feel the elevation of his status in order to bolster his own self image. In short, he is a bully. This characteristic begins to dominate his thoughts and actions when events conspires to question his own competence, his right to that nourishing status.

Lydecker is a member of Pfitz's ground crew. Suffice it to say that Lydecker is not at the intellectual end of the fighting machine. Neither does he hail from privilege. Quite the contrary, in fact. Lydecker, had he not joined the navy, would probably have grown into a complete bum, at best one step up from a down-and-out. Even in the armed forces he can only aspire to the most menial of tasks, but he is at least thorough and tries to keep his nose clean. But for Lydecker events conspire to heap suspicion on his competence, a suspicion constantly fuelled by a torrent of abuse and accusation that flows from Pfitz, the pilot it remains his responsibility to service.

Pfitz likes his job. That much is clear. He takes a particular liking to napalm and delights at the idea of heaping tons of the stuff from his jet onto the population of rural Vietnam. He takes involved interest in technical improvements to his preferred weapon, improvements that ensure the fireball sticks firmly to anything it encounters, thus guaranteeing that it will burn right through. If he were closer to the action, one feels that Pfitz would delight in the smell, the mixture of burning organics saucing the suggestion of roast pork emanating from oxidised human flesh. He takes that kind of pride in a job well done.

Lydecker is demoted, effectively humiliated by the time he gets an opportunity for some shore leave. During his week in Saigon he remorselessly pursues two forms of recreation, one out of a bottle, the other between whatever sheets are on offer. But there is one girl who is different, staying remote from the business of others, busying herself about her own affairs. She is treated with apparently universal and complete contempt and she alone amongst the bar hangers-on is never on the menu, her meat not for sale. Bullied himself in the workplace, one might expect Lydecker to sympathise with her plight. But he treats her with as much - if not more - disdain than the rest and, eventually, it is more out of spite than either sympathy or desire that he insists on a session with her, forces himself on her merely to underline his right to assert assumed control. What Lydecker subsequently experiences with that girl changes his view of the world just a little, but enough to influence events elsewhere, his new-found conscience constructing a plan he might employ back on board.

In a short story, William Boyd illustrates class systems embedded in the USA's professedly classless society. He confronts the so-called clinical nature of modern warfare by identifying the blunderbuss of terror that maims everything in its indiscriminating line of fire. He characterises sadism, vengeance, conscience and retribution. He draws sketches of exploitation, both economic and social, and illustrates how communities, even whole societies, can be seen as built on a crass and ruthless assertion of domination for domination's sake. And all of this happens in less than twenty-five pages.

Other stories in the set are also of a very high standard. To review them all would reproduce the book, no less, for they are succinct, often surprising, sometimes humorous pieces which together form a supreme achievement.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant piece of expository writing on a controversial war, November 14, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (La Jolla, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Yankee Station (Mass Market Paperback)

Of all of the millions of words written about the contoversial war in Vietnam the ones in this book ring truest! Cdr. Nichols, a veteran of over 300 combat missions flown from carriers in the Tonkin Gulf and over 3,000 hours in the Crusader, knows how to bring the reader right into the cockpit with him. What a spectacular true story of a truly unusual war! Read it!!!