The Man from Saigon, Library Edition: A Novel

Leimbach, Marti

ISBN 10 : 140014633X ISBN 13 : 9781400146338

Editeur : Tantor Media Inc, 2010

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The first shots came as they were flying northeast toward Danang. Over the terrific noise of the engine and rotors, she could hear a pinging sound, something like coins being lobbed against the metal where she was sitting. It wasn't particularly loud anddidn't sound remarkable or worrying. For many minutes she sat stiffly in the nylon seat of the helicopter, the wind rifling across her trouser legs, sending her field jacket back so that she could feel a button pushing against her neck, being aware of manythings, but not of the pinging sound, the bullets directed at her, at all of them, as they spun above a canopy of jungle.   She had much to distract her from the pinging: the roar of the engine as the chopper skimmed over the tops of trees, the throbbing of the rotors, the explosions of fire from the door gunners, the effort she made to keep from being sick. It was awhile beforeshe even thought about it. She only registered the gravity of the sound because she felt a force behind her, a sudden pushing in of metal as though a fist had pressed the fuselage of the chopper inward, feeling mildly uncomfortable and new. The place wherethe metal had bent was low on her back, just above her belt. Had the bullet passed through the side of the chopper, it would have found a home in her right kidney. When she reached back to check that it was not her imagination, that there really was a small,convex lump behind her, she felt the hot metal at the same time as a rising panic, a kind of insistence from inside her that she respond to the assault, as involuntary as a sneeze.   It may have been that her body knew even before she clocked it in her mind that they were being shot at, that they were being hit. When she realized the sound she'd been hearing was of bullets meeting the skin of the chopper, she found she had to controlherself as she might a bucking horse, staying focused, intent, sitting out the ride as the chopper dipped and swerved, as the pinging sound seemed to dissolve all others, so that it felt to her that the volume had been turned down, that the whole of the earthwas silent, except for this one noise. She felt a kind of last-minute, hopeless panic, her life opening before her. Not her life passing year to year in a flash as it is said to do at such moments, nothing like that. Only where she was, and that she'd had achoice some time back, not now, and that she'd made the wrong choice. It was a feeling of being trapped and desperate, of having been cornered by her own mistakes.   She did not look at her colleague, her friend, Son. She knew he did not like being so close to American marines, that he did not like this particular route into Danang, flying over the jungle. There were always VC there, cloaked by the jungle's thick canopy,willing to take a few quick shots in case they got lucky. Son had warned her, but she did not take it in. Now she could not bring herself to look at him. Nor did she watch the door gunners or turn to see the pilot. In fact, she could not see properly; everynerve seemed to focus inward at the terror brewing inside her.   If she'd had the presence of mind, she'd not have blamed the enemy, nor the pilot, nor command operations, not even the war itself for what was happening, for what more might happen. She would have cast the blame on her own poor judgment for getting onthe chopper in the first place. For every small, seemingly inconsequential decision that had led her here, to this place, right now. Under fire, she found it hard to breathe or swallow or make a noise. More than anything, she wanted to run, which was of coursenot possible, and the fact that she could not run, that she was caged and airborne and entirely at the mercy of whatever would happen next, was almost unbearable.   She wrapped her hands over her head, over her eyes. She stared down at the floor and watched as a bullet made a mark there, a little rise of hot aluminum not far from her foot, and she wished she'd followed the advice she'd read about traveling by helicopterin Vietnam, which was not only to wear a flak jacket but to sit on one as well.   And then the pinging stopped. She waited for it to begin again, but there was no sound. She heard the chaos of voices and gunfire, wind and rotors, loud and relentless, hammering at her skull, but the pinging was gone. She felt something inside her shiftand she was able finally to look up, scanning the faces of the others. She looked at Son. His black hair stood straight up, a result of sweat and wind. He tried to smile but his mouth was dry and taut so that all he managed to do was squint and meet her eyeswith his reassuring gaze. One of the gunners was intent on unjamming his gun, the other so pale she thought for a moment that he would faint and fall out of the open door. His shirt was wet, as though someone had poured a bucket of water across his chest, andshe watched as the wind dried it little by little, all signs of the terror of the last few minutes quietly disappearing.   Someone began to laugh. The pilot whooped and the gunner with the jammed M60 suddenly opened fire at no particular target. They had flown through it; they had won this moment. It wasn't long before they could see the sands stretching eastward toward theSouth China Sea, the chopper landing safely in Danang. They trotted out, inspecting the fuselage for dings, for all those little holes that meant bullets. She walked around the helicopter, finding the area outside where she'd been sitting, looking up at thedented metal, the pocket where she'd felt the heat, the sharp splinters of metal beginning to fracture. The others were pointing to more serious breaks in the chopper, but she stared only at that one place where the bullet hadn't quite broken through. Nothinghad come of it. She would tell herself this thin truth for many days: while in the shower at the press center, while standing in line at the USO for burgers, while drifting off in thought when she was supposed to be interviewing someone, she would insist thatnothing had happened. The bullet had fallen back through the sky; the chopper had touched down like a giant trembling bird; everything ended the way it ought to have, with them safely on the ground, the heat gathering around them as the rotors slowed. It wasa July afternoon and the air was still.   Shall I take a photograph? Son asked her, nodding up at the chopper, at the scar in the metal that held her attention. It seemed so innocuous now, the bullet hole, like the head of a lion mounted on a wall.   She told him no, the words coming out quickly, perhaps a little too loudly, as though he'd asked for something inappropriate and personal. Then she said, I didn't mean to sound like that. Take the picture. Go ahead.   He brought the camera to his eye, framed the photograph, adjusted the focus, and released the shutter. They walked together across the airfield with their packs and cameras, and she suddenly ran forward and was sick on the dirt by the fence line. Son waited,then carried her pack for her.   You might one day want it, he said. That picture.   She was wrung out of emotions. She felt places in her body that were like bruises, the result of clenched muscles. She shook her head and wondered why anyone would want that photograph. Why would they keep such a thing? But she did want it, not then butmany months later when she was packing for home. It was among the few mementos she took with her.     A month earlier, in Saigon, a guy had given her a mimeographed pamphlet written by another reporter, the pages stapled together, corners curled, the title stamped across the front in capital letters: Handbook for Newsmen in Vietnam. It was written duringthe years when the war was still young, a small affair with none of the sense of increasing disaster that hung about it now. Its author mixed practical advice with his own idiosyncratic observations about the locals, warning reporters never to travel withoutID papers, for example, and that the Vietnamese will always tell you what they think you want to hear. Nobody spoke much about the handbook; everybody read it and pretended they had not. In fact, the reporter she borrowed it from made a point of saying he didnot want it returned.   They were in a bar, a group of other reporters around them, enjoying the air-conditioning and the darkness that contrasted with the extreme light outside. She had arrived exhausted into Tan Son Nhut airport sixteen hours earlier, the plane diving towardthe landing strip as though it meant to bury itself there. She'd never been to Asia, or covered a war. Now she found herself in a bar that might as well have been in New York or Chicago. She didn't know what to expect. She felt a little disoriented. The chatterof the reporters confused her; she couldn't even figure out what they were talking about--this infantry, that unit. Drinking did not help, but she certainly was not going to sit in the bar surrounded by men drinking Scotch and order a ginger ale. The reporterwho asked her to meet him said he had something for her, and that something turned out to be a copy of the handbook. He gave it to her along with his business card, his home number handwritten on the reverse side.   Let me know when you get back, he said. I'd like to hear how it went. He was maybe a dozen years older than her, the beginnings of gray in his hair made his head appear to shine. He looked as though he felt a little sorry for her. He regarded her as onemight a younger sister, even a child.   She smiled. You don't think I'll last two weeks, do you?   He was taken aback, though he tried not to show it. I didn't say that. Anyway, it depends on where you go.   She laid the handbook on the table next to their drinks. So where did you go? she asked.   He brushed the question aside. You'll notice how slim it is, the handbook. That's because you really can't tell people what they need to know. But read it anyway. Definitely read it.   He smiled. He explained that he was leaving for New York the following day and all he could offer by way of good advice was for her to go home now...

Revue de presse

"There is something familiar, almost reassuringly so, about the elements of this fast-paced, vividly descriptive novel. . . The ingredients that decades ago proved so seductively vertiginous and surreally dislocating in [Apocalypse Now] flavor [The Man From Saigon]. . . An atmosphere of deception and self-deception permeates this book. . . Leimbach’s emphasis on a female reporter in a war that was so often covered by men is refreshing."
—The New York Times Book Review

"Leimbach vividly recreates the chemical strafing of the countryside, the misery of the refugee camps and the suffocating humidity of the jungle. This impressive novel finds a new way of illuminating the horrors of an old war."
—People, 3.5 of 4 stars

"Vivid and powerful. . . Leimbach masterfully conjures the hothouse atmosphere of foreign correspondents in Saigon in the late 1960s, and in Susan she has created a heroine who is a worthy counterpart to the real life reporters who covered the war. Whether describing a convoy taking fire, a farcical press briefing, a quiet moment between Susan and Marc, or the ironic aftermath of Susan's ordeal, Leimbach expertly captures the contradictions of the war, making this a solid addition to the literature of an endlessly reconsidered conflict."
−Publishers Weekly, starred review

"You might question the ambition of a contemporary novelist electing to set a story in the Vietnam War era, but after you find (as I did) that you simply cannot put down The Man from Saigon, you question no more.  Leimbach’s mastery of place, of the scents, sounds, terrors and sorrows  of  that time reminded me as  perhaps only a great novel can that that we are never done with a war even when it is long over, and that only wars and love endure."  
—Dr. Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

“The Man from Saigon is stunning — so visual, so sensual and sharply realized. Almost nothing else could interest me in another book about that war, but by writing about a woman reporter in Vietnam, Leimbach makes its dark history brilliantly new.”
—Karen Connelly, author of The Lizard Cage

“From Tim O'Brien and Denis Johnson to Bao Ninh, the war in Vietnam gave rise to long shelf of fine fiction. In this novel, set in Saigon and the jungle battlefields of 1967, Marti Leimbach nods to forerunners but still finds a path of her own through the maze of lies and fear. Susan, her British-raised front-line reporter, is taken prisoner by Vietcong along with her enigmatic photographer, Son. Scenes from the frenzied ‘theatre of extremes’ she has left in the city, and of a tightly-strung affair with married colleague Marc, alternate with scarily sensuous evocations of her torrid captivity. Emotionally rich, viscerally intense, the novel revisits a familiar terrain but finds ways to see it anew.”
—The Independent

“Leimbach does an impressive job of evoking the frenetic chaos of Saigon and the claustrophobia and suffocating humidity of the dense jungle, while her story has a vivid immediacy as it flashes backwards and forwards in a deliberately disorienting fashion. The result is intense and gripping.”
—Daily Mail

 Praise for Marti Leimbach's Daniel Isn't Talking

 "A tearful, joyful novel." —Time

 "Gripping. . . Leimbach has a gift for emotionally searing fiction leavened with humor." —People

 "Timely and uplifting." —The New York Times Book Review

 "Hard to put down. . . Leimbach's strength is in creating characters who are human and fallible and become imbedded in your heart." —USA Today

 “Amazing. . . [A book about] tangled relationships, compassionate moments, fear and joy. . . and along the way there are moments of grace. . . Gives us reason to hope.” —The Washington Post

 “Beautifully crafted and immensely touching.” —The Guardian (London)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Tantor Media Inc
• Date d'édition: 2010
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 140014633X
• ISBN 13: 9781400146338
• Reliure: CD
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible