Dragon Lady –by Gary Alexander
Fiction
320 pages, 443 KB
Footnotes/Endnotes: No
Illustrations: No
Suitable for eReaders: Yes
5 Stars
Any book that sends me to the dictionary, either hard copy
or online, or better yet, the encyclopedia, is bound to become a favorite of
mine. And Dragon Lady did just that. I was sure Ton Son Nhat was the wrong
spelling, that it should have been Ton Son Nhut. Guess what? I learned
something!
This novel is by a Viet Nam Vet, and the flashbacks take
place back when it was still two words, Viet Nam. The first thing Mr. Alexander
did that I enjoyed, was have the narrator living (is that the right word for a
dead man?) in The Land Beyond vs. The Land of the Living. Our narrator, Joe, is
wonderful as he looks back on his life in Saigon, and his love, the Dragon
Lady, the beautiful Mai.
In the first place, I'm not one hundred percent sure Joe is
a fictional character (though how he writes from They Land Beyond is, well,
beyond me) as I'm sure I met him when I was in the WAC. Or at least a
reasonable facsimile thereof. Or was
that me? Well, never mind.
Joe, and his pal Ziggy, were wonderful, and though I might
not want to invite them home for dinner, I'd probably love to know them. Joe is
sarcastic, a screw off who actually gets more done than Radar O'Reilly
(M*A*S*H) and has a great time doing it. He loves Terry and the Pirates, and
his mother faithfully sends him the Sunday funnies every week so he can read
about Terry and the real Dragon Lady.
And then he meets Mai, and falls head over heels in love
with his own Dragon Lady. But who is Mai? Which story she tells is true?
This is a war story more on the lines of Catch-22 than All's
Quiet on the Western Front. If you're a 'Nam vet, or know one, and want to know
what it was like behind the lines, so to speak, read this book. Lots of humor
(back to M*A*S*H and Catch 22) and not a lot of violence and bloodshed.
Joe and Ziggy were guys I liked, and pulled for, and I'm
still sure I knew them. I think they were at Smiley Barracks, Karlsruhe when I
was stationed there. Or was it Fort McClellan? Or, maybe....
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