Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The year is 1968. Like thousands of other American boys, Carl Melcher is drafted and sent to Vietnam. His new company is infected with the same racial tensions plaguing the nation. Despite that, Carl makes friends on both sides of the color line. The war, like a tiger lurking in the bushes, picks off its victims one by one. Naively over-optimistic, Carl believes that karma and good intentions will save him and his friends. Then fate intervenes to teach Carl something of the meaning of life, and death.
Along with the likes of best-selling authors Joyce Carol Oates and David McCullough -- whose works were nominated for Wednesday's Frankfurt eBook Awards -- is an author who's only sold eight copies. Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam, a non-fiction work by Paul Clayton, was rejected by traditional publishers before being picked up last year by Electric eBook Publishing. – M. J. Rose (writing for Wired.com)
Vietnam, 1968, dawn, perimeter guard...
"What do you think about being in Vietnam?" I said.
Ron laughed. The horizon was cherry red, and we could hardly see each other.
"We're just here for business."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this war is just a business deal. The big boys got together and said, 'Look, the economy isn't doing so hot and we got all these extra people with no jobs, just causing trouble, so why don't we have us a little drawn-out war. That way we can get rid of the excess population and pump up the economy."
I smiled. "C'mon, you're telling me this whole war was cooked up to boost the economy?"
"That's right."
"The American, maybe, but not the Vietnamese. I can't see them sacrificing thousands of their people."
"Life is cheap over here."
"I don't believe it."
"Why do you think there's so much trash in the company?"
"What do you mean?"
"C'mon, Carl. A third of the men on this hill are black trash and the rest are all white trash."
I laughed. I had never thought of myself as 'white trash.'
Ron spoke like a teacher giving a lecture. "You see, the rich man in America struck a deal with the Communist bosses in Asia. The Asians have a population way more than what their lands can support, and America has an excess of trash."
Ron sighed. "The only reason the war's lasted as long as it has is because it's all b******t and everybody knows it. And that's why the troops ain't taking no chances. Why get yourself killed when them senators' and businessmen's sons are laying up at some Ivy League college studying poli-sci or history of art or something like that, and gettin' all the girls they want!"
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clayton offers a solid albeit familiar account of the horrors of war in his debut, a Vietnam coming-of-age novel that tracks the fortunes of a young man from Philadelphia named Carl Melcher through his difficult tour. The first half of the book remains fairly static as Melcher drops out of college, ends up in the service and draws a relatively benign assignment away from the fighting, allowing Clayton to develop the various stock characters in Melcher's squad. The action heats up when Melcher begins to go out on patrol, then turns white hot around the time of the Tet offensive as the quiet, affable protagonist goes through a series of tense but predictable close calls. When Melcher falls in love with a local Vietnamese girl, the novel almost breaks from genre formula, but Clayton comes closer to innovation during the closing chapters after Melcher is wounded and mulls the possibility of self-mutilation in a Japanese hospital to keep from going back into battle as his tour winds down. Clayton's simple prose remains balanced and effective throughout, but the novel has far too many familiar scenes, from the obligatory subplot about an experienced GI who gets killed just before his tour ends to the predictable infighting among squad members and some stereotypical material about clueless officers. Clayton's strong character writing carries the book, though, and he gets mileage from underplaying Melcher's reaction to the daily horrors.
