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Title: Soldier In Paradise

Author: John Mort

Narrator: Jerry Sciarrio

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-11-11

Publisher: Books in Motion

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

John Morts compelling first novel embodies both the Vietnam combat experience and the sad aftermath for those who underwent it. Alternating between stateside chapters after the war and the Vietnam chapters dramatizing it, the novel creates a tension back and forth in time as well as geography. We participate in the trauma of combat in crisp and authentic detail, and we witness the effect of that experience on Irish Donnelly, a bookish, reluctant soldier, and his fellow infantrymen in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam. Transcending any political focus, Soldier in Paradise dramatically renders the alienation of Vietnam veterans, ordinary men whove had an extra burden to bear because of the protracted, brutish character of an unpopular war that never came to a satisfactory end.

Members Reviews:

A good, fast-paced read

This is the E-book version of a novel published in 1999. The novel won the W.Y Boyd Award for best military fiction.

It is a swift, satisfying read because of Mort's trademark style--fluid, deceptively easy but in fact quite elegant. It is the story of Patrick "Irish" Donnelly's experience in Vietnam, juxtaposed against his current post-service life. Probably one of the more accessible Vietnam War stories you'll read. Mort limits the number the characters, allowing us to feel invested in their lives and in some cases, deaths. One reviewer of the book called it a "fictionalized memoir." Maybe. But it is very much a novel in structure--the individual scenes build tension and then release--in spite of the alternating chapters (War, home). Recommended.

like the book

like the book , i served with the author in the same company in viet nam 69-70 tells a story well

great book good stories by a VN

great book good stories by a VN vet

Great characters.

This is a well written book. Great characters.

Deserves a prominent place in the pantheon of Vietnam novels

I just finished reading John Mort's novel, SOLDIER IN PARADISE. It blew me away. Mort writes in a deceptively simple style, but his story drew me in, SUCKed me in, keeping me up late turning pages - but slowly, in a thoughtful considering sort of way - and wondering what will happen next to his young-then-old narrator, Patrick "Irish" Donnelly and his rag-tag band of brothers - two of them actually, one bunch in Vietnam and the other, years later, in Florida. As I was reading this complex many-layered and Literary with a capital "L" tale, I kept wondering to myself: "How come I never heard of this book? It's been around for nearly fifteen years!"

Obviously SOLDIER IN PARADISE is one of those casualties of the publishing industry: a particularly fine novel that was launched with little fanfare, then promptly sank and disappeared. Well, as one of Irish's pals would have said, "Shee-ut!"

Mort, according to his jacket info, is a librarian in Kansas City, Missouri. (But he could be retired by now.) A librarian! Someone who loves books, loves good literature. And a guy with a wickedly dry sense of humor too, not shy about poking some gentle fun at himself as both a librarian and an aspiring writer. Irish casually mentions a male acquaintance of his - a single librarian - and the speculation that surrounded him about whether he might be gay. Implying subtly that the librarian job made him every bit as suspect as his bachelorhood. Then Irish mentions that he published "a few short stories in places nobody noticed.