
Payback
Five Marines After Vietnam
Joe Klein(Author)
Simon & Schuster (Publisher)
Published on 27. October 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-1-4516-8362-2 (ISBN)
Description
From the author of Primary Colors, ?a remarkably sensitive story of a generation? (The New York Times Book Review): The critically acclaimed true story of five Marines who fought together in a bloody battle during the Vietnam War, barely escaping with their lives, and of what happened when they came home.
In 1981, while the country was celebrating the end of the Iran hostage crisis, an unemployed Vietnam veteran named Gary Cooper went berserk with a gun, angry over the jubilant welcome the hostages received in contrast to his own homecoming from Vietnam, and was killed in a fight with police. In what has been called ?the most eloquent work of nonfiction to emerge from Vietnam since Michael Herr's Dispatches? (The New York Times), Joe Klein tells Cooper's story, as well as the stories of four of the other vets in Cooper's platoon.
The story begins with an ambush and a grisly battle in the Que Son Valley in 1967, but Payback is less about remembering the war and more about examining its long-term effects on the grunts who fought it. Klein fills in the next fifteen years of these Marines' lives after they return home, with ?the sort of fine and private detail one ordinarily finds only in fiction? (People). The experiences of these five men capture the struggles of a whole generation of Vietnam veterans and their families. Klein's ?near-hypnotic? account (Daily News, New York) is, to this day, both a remarkable piece of reporting and ?some of the most vivid, harrowing, and emotionally honest writing to come out of Vietnam? (The Washington Post Book World).
In 1981, while the country was celebrating the end of the Iran hostage crisis, an unemployed Vietnam veteran named Gary Cooper went berserk with a gun, angry over the jubilant welcome the hostages received in contrast to his own homecoming from Vietnam, and was killed in a fight with police. In what has been called ?the most eloquent work of nonfiction to emerge from Vietnam since Michael Herr's Dispatches? (The New York Times), Joe Klein tells Cooper's story, as well as the stories of four of the other vets in Cooper's platoon.
The story begins with an ambush and a grisly battle in the Que Son Valley in 1967, but Payback is less about remembering the war and more about examining its long-term effects on the grunts who fought it. Klein fills in the next fifteen years of these Marines' lives after they return home, with ?the sort of fine and private detail one ordinarily finds only in fiction? (People). The experiences of these five men capture the struggles of a whole generation of Vietnam veterans and their families. Klein's ?near-hypnotic? account (Daily News, New York) is, to this day, both a remarkable piece of reporting and ?some of the most vivid, harrowing, and emotionally honest writing to come out of Vietnam? (The Washington Post Book World).
More details
Edition
Reissue ed.
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
318 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4516-8362-2 (9781451683622)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2015
1st Edition
Simon + Schuster Inc.
€12.85
Available for download
Person
Joe Klein is an award-winning journalist and the author of seven books, including the #1 bestseller Primary Colors. His weekly Time column, "In the Arena," covers US politics, elections, and foreign policy and has won two National Headliner Awards for best magazine column.