I got this battered-but-readable paperback from Better World Books after reading reviews of this novel, having been attracted by the title - a reference to little Gavroche in Les Miserables. It deals with a gay Marine during the Vietnam war, as told through his letters to several different people from relatives to friends (only one of whom is privy to his sexual adventures). It's often funny, and often very bleak - he spends a lot of time tending the wounded, with all-too-accurate depictions of wounds, illnesses, careless treatment, lack of supplies, and ever-present hazards. Yet somehow, even though he went in to his hitch confident that he'd have to be celibate the entire time, he winds up having massive amounts of sex, sometimes involving a delicate series of hints to determine another man's proclivities, sometimes involving lots of booze and drugs, and occasionally not involving consent.

The letters to his grandmother, sister, and cousin tend to include some entertaining views of life in Vietnam, carefully minimizing or eliminating the most traumatic bits, and of course leaving out all the sex. Contrasting these letters with those to his straight friend (who gets more of the gritty war-zone details but, again, none of the sex) and with the seemingly more honest ones to his gay friend make up part of the appeal of the book for me.

The body-count is high, here. I lost track of the number of characters - including friends and sometime lovers - who were introduced by our narrator only to be listed as dead or missing or invalided home with some horrifying injuries. He didn't get off entirely free himself, though his worst injuries didn't take place until late in the story, and led to - well, I won't spoil the conclusion, but it left me feeling rather chilled...

I found myself mostly liking our narrator, despite some of his less responsible acts, but I admit that the whole story is quite gritty and often filthy (in the literal as well as figurative sense) - not surprising for life in a war-zone where even the most tranquil-seeming villages may be full of enemies.

There are some portions of the story that are almost high comedy, especially the segment set in a remote villa away from the front lines; that bit felt a lot like the more hilarious bits from M*A*S*H, though (of course) it didn't end well. And the trauma - so much trauma...

A different viewpoint on the war than I'd encountered before, and a memorable character. I enjoyed this.

I'm adding this book to the LGBTQIA bookbox, which will be on its way again on Tuesday. Hope someone enjoys this book!

*** Released for the 2015 Allergic to A challenge. ***

Taken from the bookbox.

This was a book that I spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to decide how I felt about it. In the end, I think I liked it, although I'm not sure I enjoyed it. I know that's a weird distinction to make, but it, like some other realistic war novels, is not a very pleasant read, and not terribly enjoyable in the way a horror or action novel is. It is just too bleakly grim and too emotionally bare to let you read it comfortably. There is a lot of humor, but it is often a clear distraction from the terror around him.

I found the main character memorable, but not really likable. However, we only get to see him through his letters, which all seem skewed for different purposes as he presents a slightly different persona to each of his correspondents, so in a way, I felt like the reader hardly knew him, even though we knew so many intimate details of his life.

Sent out as one of the starting books in the LGBTQ+ Bookbox

Taken from emmejo's LGBTQ+ box with thanks.

(Thank you Gory for pointing out the Les Miserables reference - I did read the -whole- book years ago, but I would have missed that.)

Decided I'm not going to get around to this one: I'll send it off on a new adventure.

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Fourth-quarter themes for Secretariat's 2018 Never Judge a Book By Its Cover Release Challenge:

Week 42: turned backs
Week 48: embedded nouns in author name (char, son)

Earlier 2018 themes:

1st quarter: Week 11: green
2nd quarter: Week 16: ANZaC author surnames (Nelson)
2nd quarter: Week 20: military in uniform

Saturday, January 05, 2019: still working on filling up this LFL; most of the other books I've left there recently are gone. (Larger photo here.)

Released for Secretariat's 2018 NJABBIC challenge (week 52: 4th quarter re-do/anything goes).

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