num_pages: 224
description: Paco Sullivan is the only man in Alpha Company to survive a cataclysmic Viet Cong attack on Fire Base Harriette in Vietnam. Everyone else is annihilated. When a medic finally rescues Paco almost two days later, he is waiting to die, flies and maggots covering his burnt, shattered body. He winds up back in the US with his legs full of pins, daily rations of Librium and Valium, and no sense of what to do next. One evening, on the tail of a rainstorm, he limps off the bus and into the small town of Boone, determined to find a real job and a real bed—but no matter how hard he works, nothing muffles the anguish in his mind and body. Brilliantly and vividly written, Paco's Story—winner of a National Book Award—plunges you into the violence and casual cruelty of the Vietnam War, and the ghostly aftermath that often dealt the harshest blows.
language: English
title: Paco's Story
titlecomplete: Paco's Story
genres: Fiction, War, Asia, Modern, Literature, American History, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Military Fiction
ratings_count: 945
awards: awardedAt: 536486400000
name: National Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 536486400000
name: Society of Midland Authors Award
category: Adult Fiction
publisher: Vintage