Philip Caputo (1941–2026)

A RUMOR OF WAR, by Philip Caputo.

This is a RE-read for me. I first read Caputo's Vietnam war memoir more than 35 years ago, in a mass market paperback edition, when it was still a pretty new book. Then it was just a very popular and bestselling book. This time I read it in a 1996 Holt Paperback edition, with a front cover caption calling it "The Classic Vietnam Memoir." And it has certainly earned this title, still in print, still much-read. One of the lines I remembered was a comment from a show more seasoned Korean War veteran, who told the young Lieutenant Caputo - "Before you leave here, sir, you're going to learn that one of the most brutal things in the world is your average nineteen-year-old American boy." And in the madness and heat of combat, young Caputo learned this to be too true. Indeed, he even discovered some of that brutality in himself.

One especially affecting section of the narrative depicts the time that Caputo spent as "Officer in Charge of the Dead," and the fevered, too-real nightmares that went with that job. Another is the unsettling, inebriated feeling he experiences during R&R in Saigon, a feeling that he suddenly realizes is no more than freedom from fear. Similarly, near the end of his tour, he feels it again when he becomes, at least temporarily, indifferent to death.

"It was not a feeling of invincibility; indifference, rather. I had ceased to fear death because I had ceased to care about it. Certainly I had no illusions that my death, if it came, would be a sacrifice. It would merely be a death, and not a good one either ... There were no good deaths in the war."

The real insanity of the war is perhaps best illustrated in Caputo's being brought up on murder charges for a patrol and 'snatch' of suspected VC's he helped to plan. By that time he was not simply indifferent, he was angry, and he could no longer stomach the war.

The flat numbness that was felt by so many veterans of the Vietnam war is well summed up with the final lines of Caputo's story as he takes off on a flight out of Vietnam, bound for home -

"None of us was a hero. We would not return to cheering crowds, parades, and the pealing of great cathedral bells. We had done nothing more than endure. We had survived, and that was our only victory."

Philip Caputo is a fine writer, and yes, this is "The classic Vietnam memoir." Very highly recommended. show less

Wandering Souls by Pulitzer Prize winning author Philip Caputo is stylized like Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, an anthology of various stories connected by a singular element. In Chaucer's book, the characters are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. In Caputo's compilation, the characters lead tortured lives, seeking individual pilgrimages to work out their self-inflicted turmoil before they leave the earthly plane. His descriptive narration makes their troubles and show more tribulations relatable to the reader.
Caputo leads the reader to believe that these souls need to make amends before leaving the earthly plane, or they will carry their troubles into the afterlife, wandering on a celestial plane troubled and in misery. His writing is gripping and certainly puts seeds in the readers head that a spiritual pilgrimage is essential on the earthly plane before entering a celestial plane. A Vietnam veteran on a quest to find the remains of follow soldiers leads to deep secrets being unmasked. Another tale describes a wildlife photographer who takes risks he usually would have never embarked had it not been for his spiritual pilgrimage.
Delving into the complex relationship between the body, the mind, and the soul, Caputo has a keen writing style that gravitates the reader to the tales. Reconciling the past is a dominant theme throughout the anthology, and one that readers will find enticing. show less

The novelist [a:John Gardner|2945469|John Gardner|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg] put forth the notion that fiction should "evoke a vivid and continuous dream." In other words, it should immerse the reader in a world that feels alive, from the beginning of the book to the end. Creating this universe -- be it one that looks and feels like our own or a totally different time and place -- is the challenge of the novelist. I thought about this notion of the vivid and show more continuous dream while reading Philip Caputo's [b:Crossers|6593158|Crossers|Philip Caputo|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255576175s/6593158.jpg|6786867]. I'd never read Caputo, never even heard of him, actually, until a family friend recommended him to me and loaned me his copy of the book. "This guy, he knew what was going on down there before anybody," my friend said. The "down there" he was speaking of is the Mexican border, and in that sense, I think he was right. The book follows Castle, a minor titan of Wall Street who loses his wife in the 9/11 terror attacks. Grief-stricken and broken, he decides to retire from his career in finance and retreat, literally, to the Arizona desert, taking up residence in an old cabin on the outskirts of his cousin's cattle ranch. There he discovers that the desert is a perilous place, overrun with undocumented immigrants making an often deadly dash across the arid landscape and lethal smugglers toting bales of marijuana on their backs. It's a world where minding your own business is a way of life, and riding into the wrong canyon can spell disaster.Castle's attempts to seclude himself are thwarted first by a comely female rancher, Tessa, and then by the inescapable blight of the drug trade, which finds its way into the business of his cousin Blaine's cattle ranch. Weaving the stories of several characters -- Castle, Blaine, their grandfather Ben Erskine (The last of the great Western cowboys), a double-agent called, enigmatically, The Professor, and the ruthless and erratic druglord Yvonne Menendez -- Caputo creates a compelling portrait of life along the border.Caputo's knowledge of the Arizona-Sonora desert, the ins-and-outs of the drug trade along its border, and the incredible details of ranch life and the lifestyle of the working cowboys or vaqueros, as they are called throughout, is beyond impressive. Following the rich cast of characters -- the thoughtful widower Castle, the man of intrigue "The Professor," the hothead Blaine -- was a delight. To be pulled along, through the dream -- or more accurately, the nightmare -- of this book, as it slowly unfolded was a pleasure.If I have a criticism of the book, it's that Caputo's authority is so great when he's operating in an area of expertise, such as cattle ranching, that when he ventures out of what he seems to know, he sometimes strikes a false note. One such example is a description of the crowd at an alt-country show on a college campus. He describes the students as wearing the sweatshirts of the university they attend. This detail -- minor, to be sure -- struck me as incredibly false. At times, the book's one true villain, Yvonne Menendez, felt a little too broadly drawn, that she drifted into caricature. Caputo does a great job of making most of the characters morally ambiguous, and while he does his best to show Yvonne's motives, deeply rooted in history as they are, it came up just short of the kind of nuanced detail that I would wanted. In short, I was hoping for "The Wire" of the Mexican drug trade, and it didn't quite hit that lofty mark. And in a book of such impeccable detail -- the descriptions of the mesas and canyons of the desert, of the birds and beasts who inhabit it are so obviously from life -- that these brief moments of unreality had the jarring effect of breaking the dream of the narrative, of ripping me out of the world and making me think about the author. And that was a shame.Thankfully, those sour notes were few and far between, and the plot is so compelling and so well-paced, that I can recommend this book without reservation. To live there, in the foothills of the Huachuca Mountains, for a few weeks, was a true pleasure, and a terrific way to begin the year as a reader. show less

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”

So speaks Escalus, a character in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a play that tackles the subjects of justice and mercy, yet also addressees the abuse of power by those tasked with protecting the public. So, it should be no surprise that Philip Caputo’s first novel in eight years borrows more than just its title from the bard.

Set in the fictional north Mexico town of San Patricio trapped in a war between narco-traffickers and the show more Mexican army and federal police, Some Rise by Sin has a diverse cast of characters. American priest Timothy Reardon is torn by a classic dilemma, to abide by his promise to the church and maintain the sanctity of the confessional or tell what he knows and possibly end a reign of bloodshed that has beset his parish. Expatriate Lisette Moreno’s goal of making a difference by serving as the only doctor in San Patricio and the surrounding indigenous mountain villages is challenged by a stormy relationship with her artist lover Pamela Childress. Capitán Alberto Valencia is an elite paratrooper with an Ahab-like obsession as malignant as the criminals he pursues and an unsettling dislike of the church. Working with Valencia is the mysterious Professor, who has worked with everyone from the DEA to the cartels, often at the same times.

Some reviewers have found this story too violent. It is a violent story but, sadly, it is pretty mild compared to what actually happens in areas caught between warring cartels and where the police, in most cases, have had to choose between plata o plomo (silver or lead). Even so, Caputo has done a marvelous job of describing life in Mexico, a beautiful, sorrowful, blood-spotted country’ where no one is neutral.

Bottom line: It has been a long time since I have read one of Philip Caputo’s books but I quickly remembered why I enjoyed them so much. He has a marvelous ability to suck you in and make you believe that you are in San Patricio and the sense of danger is closing in. I highly recommend this book.

*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire. show less