Gerald Nicosia, in his review of ”Paco`s Story” for The Chicago Tribune, said the language of the novel ”is as fluid and rhythmical as the best of Mark Twain or Nelson Algren.” Nicosia wrote that Heinemann exposed
”the primary fallacy of war, which comes from the notion that one can inflict pain without having pain inflicted upon one in return; and he shows this interconnectedness to be the primary truth of life itself. . . . Within disfigured, crippled Paco there is a goodly part of each of us.”
Jerry Neminic, professor of English at Northeastern Illinois University and syndicated literary commentator for National Public Radio, calls ”Paco`s Story” ”an excellent novel, very telling. He (Heinemann) has a very powerful and laconic style, almost awkward at times. He has been criticized for this, for not being as polished as a Styron, a Roth, or an Updike, or even a Toni Morrison, who is more in the mainstream as a stylist. But Larry is unique, an original. Maybe it`s silly to do, but it`s interesting to compare him to another Midwestern writer, Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser had difficulty writing in the smooth, genteel style of his time, and because of this, though everyone recognized the power behind his vision, some said he wasn`t a very good writer. But, in fact, he was a tremendous writer. Like Heinemann, he was able to write a powerful story without it coming off as slick.”
Says Stuart Brent, the Chicago book dealer who has been helping mold Chicago`s literary tastes for 40 years: ”Larry has a way of cutting right into your soul. He shows us the inescapability of the condition of our existence, the tragic element in man, and expresses it in a compelling, personal way that few can equal. He is full of grief for Paco, this kid who has become flat, deadened, silent and frozen. My father used to tell me that pain was strictly private, but here we are all allowed to grieve. I think Larry Heinemann has a chance to become a terrifically important American writer.”
For all the praise he has received, Heinemann remains nettled by the failure of the New York Times Book Review to review ”Paco`s Story” when it came out (it did review ”Close Quarters” in timely fashion when that book was published). The supplement`s influence on book sales and on the industry in general is considerable, and it can be a serious blow to the ego, if not the pocketbook, of a writer to be passed over for review. Says Heinemann a trifle petulantly, ”The New York Times brags that it is the paper of record, and I felt I had written a pretty good book. I`m not some dipstick from the middle of nowhere. It`s not some adventure novel or piece of half-a
—- work.”
Heinemann says he has no idea why the Book Review waited until the day before the National Book Awards to run a review. ”In some ways, though, they`ve shown themselves to have acted in bad faith,” he says. ”My editor says they`ve lost face.”
Book Review Editor Mitchell Levitas is unrepentant about the way things turned out. ”On two occasions, different editors at the Book Review read
`Paco`s Story,` and we concluded we didn`t have the space to review it,”
says Levitas, whose meaning is plain enough-”Paco`s Story” wasn`t considered good enough.
Continues Levitas: ”When it was nominated by three critics of sound mind and body for a National Book Award, I decided to send it out for review without standing on ceremony. At this point I thought Heinemann was entitled to a third opinion, and he got it. It is understandable that there may be disappointment or lingering resentment, but there is no reason for any of that. I hope that the virtues of Mr. Heinemann`s next novel are more readily apparent to us and to everyone.”
Levitas points out that there are certain books on which there are always going to be differences of opinion. ”What this incident describes to me is the inevitable disagreement over books. The fact that two critics picked
`Paco`s Story` as the best fiction of the year doesn`t constitute a Lou Harris poll of the opinion of most people. I don`t think Heinemann would want that kind of a poll, either. Should we take an exit poll on whether most people like Toni Morrison or Saul Bellow better after reading `Paco`s Story?` Exit polling is for another realm of the imagination.”
Heinemann considers the book award to be sweet revenge, however. ”If the Times was trying to get my goat, they haven`t,” he says. ”I don`t have to defend the book to the New York Times. The National Book Award has given
`Paco`s Story` and my career a recognition and authority that can`t be obtained any other way.”
Whatever deficiencies certain critics may find in it, there seem abundant reasons to admire ”Paco`s Story,” among them Heinemann`s artful use of an unusual device: The entire tale is told by a ghostly chorus of Paco`s comrades who speak from beyond the grave. The device allows the story to proceed, as it would in most books, in straightforward omniscient-narrator fashion, but the reader is never, for one moment, unaware that he is receiving communications from the dead about the almost dead.
The inspiration for the device came from two places, Heinemann says. The first was from Joseph Conrad. ”In `The Nigger of the Narcissus` Conrad used the collective perception of the crew,” Heinemann says. ”He was able to get away from the `I` and into the `We.` I was doing a literary experiment, certainly, but I started out with the hypothesis that there is something called the second-book letdown. You put all your jive into your first book, particularly because you use so much biographical material. So I felt I had nothing to lose by pulling out all the stops in this one.”
The other inspiration came from James Jones. ”In `The Thin Red Line,`
” Heinemann says, ”there is a scene in which LST`s are bringing troops onto the beach at Guadalcanal, and Japanese bombers are bombing them, and there are American soldiers already on shore seeing the whole thing as it unfolds, and there is nothing they can do but watch. They see a bomb float down (Heinemann, ever the dramatic narrator, uses his hands to indicate a bomb falling) and hit an LST, and they see a geyser of water, and then nothing. There is nothing left. Then an instant later they hear the whistle of the bomb and then a guy screaming and then silence. Jones says that everyone was awed because here was an instance in which someone`s voice lasted longer than his body.”
Heinemann appears ready to banish his own ghosts. He insists that when he finishes his book on delayed stress-it is approximately half completed-he is done writing about Vietnam. Unless, that is, someone asks him to write a screenplay of ”Paco`s Story.”
”I would make an exception in that case because film is where the money is, and money gives you the chance to do other things, money to live on while you`re working on other novels. But it would depend on how much money was offered. You`ve got to show me the number of zeros first. On the other hand, if Robert Altman or Oliver Stone said, `Let`s make this movie,` even if the zeros weren`t good, I`d drop everything.
”Does it sound whorish to talk so baldly about making money? Well, they can go ahead and call me a whore. But there is no reason in the world why, if you can do something well, you shouldn`t get paid. If I were a whore, I`d write horrible pornographic junk, the stuff Danielle Steele writes or Judith Krantz. People who say money shouldn`t concern the serious artist are off base. Tolstoy`s books sold like hotcakes. People used to stand on the pier waiting for the next shipment of Charles Dickens. And if Shakespeare were alive today, you can bet he`d be making films.
”I think I put my time in living hand to mouth. There is no reason to be an artistic success you have to blow your life away or else it`s not pure.”
Nevertheless, Heinemann`s intention, lacking a film offer, is to strike out in new directions, penning what he calls ”a Chicago novel.” He has already begun to gather material for it (it was one reason he went to his high school reunion, which he calls ”a gold mine”), and without the distraction of teaching, he might be reasonably expected to get it done in something less than seven years.
”I want to get Vietnam out of my house,” he says. ”I want to get on to other things. For years I have been known as a Vietnam veteran who writes. Now all of a sudden I`m a writer who happens to be a Vietnam veteran.”
