Larry Heinemann was born and raised in Chicago. He served a tour of duty with the 25th Division in Vietnam. In the past he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the William Fulbright Scholarship Program. He is the author of three novels: Close Quarters, Paco’s Story, and Cooler by the Lake, as well as a memoir, Black Virgin Mountain. His writing has received several honors, including the National Book Award and the Carl Sandburg Award. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife.
“Resonates with a devastating and bitter irony. . . . Heinemann
writes about the workingman’s Vietnam, exceptional for its bleak,
shared, unexceptional reality. This is the war, no question, and
there is no escape.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Larry Heinemann is . . . the grunt’s novelist of the Vietnam War.
His is the storytelling of a life and death between the laager and
the treeline, a life of dirt, fear, dope, alcohol, brutality,
curses, and evil.” --The Washington Post Book World
“Paco’s Story deserves a place among the best Vietnam war novels.”
—Providence Sunday Journal
“Larry Heinemann tells this story as if talking aloud, at times a
hip, cynical patter that contains the bitterness Paco never speaks.
. . . A fiction that rings truer than factual accounts.” --The
Boston Globe
“Even if Platoon were a great movie instead of just a good one, I
don't think it would approach the lingering emotional effects of
Paco's Story. I shook Platoon after one day; I still haven't shaken
the novel.” -Chicago Sun-Times
“Do not read Paco's Story unless you are prepared to find yourself
bitterly wanting to cry. The tears, if they come, will be for the
ghosts of Vietnam. Paco's Story is brave and terrible.” —The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This is strong, heart-wrenching stuff by one of America's most
important living authors.” -Robert Mason, author of Chickenhawk
“Paco's Story, brief and with a remarkable intensity, presses the
social claims of those who died literally, and those who survived
but whose history, for all the place it has today, might as well be
dead.” -Los Angeles Times
“A novel of such terrible power, it puts Heinemann in the company
of the finest American writers...You have never read anything like
Paco's Story.” -Gloria Emerson
“Paco's Story is eerie, powerful, and convincing.” -Tracy
Kidder
“Powerfully evocative....The language is visceral and compelling,
the scenes vivid and highly detailed, while the rolling narrative
resembles an emotional minefield.” —The Boston Herald
“A harsh, bitter novel that tears its way into the mind and refuses
to leave.” -The Chattanooga Times
“A tale for the workingman, filled with bitter ironies, gritty
dialogue and an introspective sense of what is happening to one man
in one private hell.” —Richmond-Times Dispatch
Ask a Question About this Product More... |