- Paperback: 864 pages
- Publisher: PublicAffairs Ltd.; Reprint edition (10 Jan 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1903985102
- ISBN-13: 978-1903985106
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.2 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 763,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
John Laurence covered the Vietnam War for CBS News from 1965 to 1970 and was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war. His documentary film, "The World of Charlie Company", won every major award for broadcast journalism and also the George Polk memorial award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and entrprise abroad". Despite the professional acclaim, the traumatic stories Laurence covered became a personal burden that he carried long after the war was over. The result is this passionate memoir about what he witnessed there, laced with humour, anger, love and the unforgettable story of a very idiosyncratic cat who was determined to play his part in the Vietnam revolution. In reconstructing his experiences, Laurence relied noy only on his notes and memory and formidable literary skill, but on dozens of hours of film footage shot at the time, giving the book an uncanny power and fidelity to facts. "The Cat From Hue" is full of bizarre stories of unknown solders and famous journalists and generals, incredible humanity and tenderness and also corruption and cowardice. Along the way, it clarifies the history of that murky war and illuminates the role that journalists played in it. This book should stand with Michael Herr's "Dispatches" and Neil Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie" as one of the best ever written about Vietnam.
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First Sentence
The whole war was in the room. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The whole war was in the room. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Cat from Hue,
By Ed Attwood (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Paperback)
It is difficult to underestimate the importance of John Laurence’s memoirs of the Vietnam War; a conflict of which Britain’s consciousness is almost entirely based on a series of films which depicted, in visceral and intense fashion, the madness which is uniquely encapsulated in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Where these films fail, and where The Cat from Hue succeeds, is the ability to link the war in Vietnam with the problems that America faces with its foreign policy today. From a political point of view, we have still to discover whether the US has learnt the lessons of Vietnam, and this book is a timely reminder of both the scale of the operations that took place in South-East Asia, and the inevitable pitfalls that such actions can provoke. When I first bought The Cat from Hue, I was expecting a litany of skirmishes, ambushes, blood and rotor blades, and was slightly sceptical, therefore, at the length of the book. Laurence does not fail to provide these details, but it is the moments in between in which he is at his descriptive best: during a firefight in the jungle, a solar eclipse takes place which causes all action to cease - Laurence paints a picture of the stillness which is as powerful as his depiction of the war itself. His various forays in the field are neatly interspersed with a journalist’s viewpoint on the war: we, like Laurence, are drawn into a maelstrom as American policy loses its way. The addition of the eponymous cat, who, along with Laurence’s trips to ‘Frankie’s House’, provide a comic, yet touching slant to his life at the front line, which balances the author’s memoirs beautifully.I loved The Cat From Hue – it provided a refreshing and beguilingly honest portrayal of Vietnam, which matched Bao Ninh’s novel, The Sorrow of War. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cat From Hue,
This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Paperback)
This was the first book I ever read on the Vietnam conflict and it remains the best. John Laurence drags you into the immediacy of the conflict with a detailed account of his experiences during the battle for Hue. The contrast of the shellshocked soliders and the humour of the cat he adopts (hence the title) strains traditional narrative yet provides the reader with a real insight into the brutality and yet mundanity of war.The book resumes with Laurence going back to his arrival in Vietnam as a naive young journalist working to establish television as the new medium for reporting. In detailed accounts he introduces his colleagues at "Frankies House" and firmly establishes the atmosphere of the mid 1960's-drink, drugs, fear and courage in the face of a never ending conflict. There is no happy ending for some of these colleagues and having got to know them we are made to feel their loss in a way rarely seen in historical works. History books have a habit of being dry and overly factual but not so here. Laurence does not ignore history but uses it as a backdrop to the human war he took part in. This is a long book but this should not disuade readers, if anything I was left wanting to read more. The effect on the writer, the people he met, the places he went and saw, all are made human. It would have been impossible in one book to fully finish all the stories he began, yet the book left me feeling that I had been as close to the conflict as someone not born when it ended ever could be. As a history of the conflict from a human viewpoint, I would recommend this book highly. It ranks with "A Bright Shining Lie" and the "the Best and the Brightest" as a book that tells the real story of Vietnam. Unlike those works however, this one makes you feel close to having been there.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book on Vietnam,
This review is from: The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story (Paperback)
Over the years I have read many books about Vietnam and the "American War" but this must rate as the best.This amazing book has an intimacy and immediacy that is even more impressive given that it was some 30 years in the writing. A thick documentry book that reads like a "page turning" novel. Some of the descriptions of the American troops behaviour makes,to me,previously seemingly bizarre and unbelievable scences from such films as "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now " not so far fetched after all. A great book and a great read. A good companion read is Tim Page's "Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden"
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