In This Boy's Life Tobias Wolf created an unforgettable memoir of an American childhood. Now he gives us a precisely and sometimes pitilessly remembered account of his young manhood - a young manhood that become entangled in the tragic adventure that was Vietnam. Mordantly funny, searingly honest, In Pharoah's Army is a war memoir in the tradition of George Orwell and Michael Herr.


From Publishers Weekly
Wolff's memoir of his disillusioning experience as a soldier in Vietnam was a finalist for the NBA. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Novelist and short story writer Wolff, who recounted his early years in This Boy's Life (LJ 1/89), served as a junior officer adviser to a South Vietnamese army unit in the Mekong Delta for his tour in Vietnam. Wolff, a reluctant warrior at best, now offers an idiosyncratic, witty, and thoroughly enjoyable glimpse into his military service and his civilian life immediately before and after Vietnam. This extended essay is not so much a combat narrative as the story of a young man's struggle to reach maturity and coming to terms with his family, his loves, his America, and himself. Wolff's characters (most especially his father and the long-suffering Sergeant Benet) and the American and Vietnamese settings are vividly depicted in a style only a skilled craftsman could devise. An excellent addition to American literature and Vietnam collections for academic and public libraries.John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Chicago Tribune
Painful...powerful...brilliant. The book is remarkable in its language, which is as supple and distilled as any contemporary American writer's; in its economy; in its structure; and, most of all, in its candor, humor, and generosity of spirit...By every measure of feeling and technique, it's a magnificent and sobering achievement.


From Booklist
Though trained for the Special Forces, Wolff--the acclaimed author of This Boy's Life (1989)--wasn't much of a warrior, spending his entire tour of duty in a muddy, obscure village in the delta. His most crucial assignment was to trade an authentic ChiCom rifle for a Zenith television so that he and the veteran sergeant who worked for him could watch Bonanza in color. He weaves into his Vietnam narrative the story of his sad, ne'er-do-well father and of a hopeless romance he enjoyed (and suffered) during his quasi-civilian year of language study in Washington, D.C. His is an extremely literary memoir, full of rueful, gracefully rendered anecdotes, most of them centering on his ineptness as a soldier. Back from language study, Wolff was first assigned to lead an airborne company on a jump. He couldn't remember how it was done except that the jump should begin at the appearance of yellow smoke. The smoke Wolff did see wasn't yellow, but he ordered his men out anyhow; they landed in a slimy landfill five miles short of the target. There's the story, too, of a hapless dog Wolff saved from a barbecue, only to have it end up on his plate at a farewell dinner. Wolff also delivers vivid accounts of close calls and a graphic report of the destruction of one small village in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, but he never loses his pleasant, self-effacing tone, and because of his immaculate prose, his unlikely mix of memories is seamless. In fact, though it may seem an odd adjective for a war memoir, it's charming and could appeal to almost anyone. John Mort


From Kirkus Reviews
Wolff continues his memoirs in this excellent volume, with his keen prose, dispassionate mordancy, and writer's attention to mood and characters applied to Vietnam's moral absurdity. The target rifles, scout troops, and juvenile delinquency described in This Boy's Life (1989) find ironic parallels here in M-16s, Special Forces, and wartime cynicism. After flunking out of prep school and jumping ship in the merchant marine, Wolff drifted into the army at 18 in 1965, having given little real thought to either the war or adulthood. Basic training and officer's candidate school subsequently confirmed to him his unsuitability for the soldier's life while the Army mechanically processed him along. His field posting as a military liaison to the South Vietnamese army, however, was less hazardous than his boot-camp peers' lethal assignments to the north. Initially, his most complicated mission was trading a Chinese rifle for a distant base's color TV in time for the ``Bonanza'' Thanksgiving special, and his luck held throughout the constant threat of Vietcong snipers and even the Tet Offensive. Alongside the obtuse inefficiency of his gung-ho replacement and the ``Quiet American'' idealism of a Foreign Service friend, Wolff's potential for youthful self-delusion and malevolence are only heightened in Vietnam; these are expressed in his insincere defense of the war in an argument with the father of a friend (who would desert just before shipping out) and his willful negligence to spite an officer, which resulted in a hamlet being flattened under a hovering Chinook helicopter. After coming unscathed out of this dispiriting and undistinguished tour of duty, Wolff attended a send-off party with Vietnamese hosts who, in mocking recognition of his services, served a dog stew made from the puppy he had adopted on his arrival. If less intense than his earlier memoir's portrayal of a troubled childhood, this candid work evenly weighs the many costs and few gains of coming of age in a war. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic.


From the Inside Flap
Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic.

ANNOTATION

From one of our finest writers, a brilliant and unflinching account of his tour in Vietnam. As a young officer he ricochets between boredom and terror and grief for lost friends. Then and in years to come, he reckons the cost of staying alive in both body and spirit.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Pharaoh's Army is Tobias Wolff's unflinching account of his tour in Vietnam, his tangled journey there and back. Using his old wiles and talents, he passes through boot camp, trains as a paratrooper, volunteers for the Special Forces, studies Vietnamese, and - without really believing it himself - becomes an officer in the U.S. Army. Then, inexorably, he finds himself drawn into the war, sent to the Mekong Delta as adviser to a Vietnamese battalion. More or less innocent, self-deluded but rapidly growing less so, he dedicates himself not to victory but to survival. For despite his impressive credentials, he recognizes in himself laughably little aptitude for the military life and no taste at all for the war. He ricochets between boredom and terror and grief for lost friends; then and in the years to come, he reckons the cost of staying alive. A superb memoir of war, In Pharaoh's Army is an intimate recounting of the central event of our recent past. Once again Tobias Wolff has combined the art of the best fiction and the immediacy of personal history - with authority, humanity, and sure conviction.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Wolff's memoir of his disillusioning experience as a soldier in Vietnam was a finalist for the NBA. (Oct.)

Library Journal