The Fearless Man

by Donald Pfarrer

Overview

Courage and cowardice are the themes of this Vietnam novel. Set in 1967–1968, The story tells of Marine Capt. MacHugh Clare and the men of his infantry company as they fight Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers in the jungles and cities of South Vietnam. Clare is a calm, cool battlefield leader who claims he has never been afraid, but when an inexperienced navy chaplain joins his unit on a dangerous search and destroy mission, Clare begins to regard his leadership in a different way. Lt. Paul Adrano, who has never seen combat, thinks he is prepared for the horrors of the modern battlefield, but he soon questions his vows and his worth as a priest and as a man. Watching both men carefully is Clare's senior enlisted man, Gunnery Sergeant Hitchcock, a crusty, battle-hardened Marine who will come to love one man and hate the other. As Clare, Adrano, Hitchcock and the Marines fight and die in Vietnam, Clare's wife, Sarah, and other Marine wives wonder and worry back home, fighting their own battles against loneliness, boredom, uncertainty and the dread of a government-issue telegram. Most of the men think they are fearless; only a few know the truth about themselves.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940157617257
Publisher:	Donald Pfarrer
Publication date:	02/04/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
File size:	871 KB

About the Author

Donald Hudson Pfarrer studied literature, history and economics at Harvard College in Cambridge Massachusetts. After graduating he spent some time in the navy as well as worked for various newspapers, such as the Hartford Courant, Milwaukee Journal and Washington Star, covering the civil rights movement. Interviewing the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and other leaders of movement.
??
When the US entered the war in Vietnam Donald volunteered for recall to active duty and served as naval gunfire boss in the 7th Marine (infantry) Regiment in Quang Ngai and adjacent provinces. This ultimately shaped his decision to write telling and truthful tales of the Vietnam war as well as other stories relating to prejudice and inequality during the time of the Civil Rights Movement.
?
Donald has two daughters, two grandsons and currently resides in Cambridge Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

Pfarrer makes his man very credible, both in his military gifts, and in his sense that even as he does his duty, and even as he has the luck to survive and bring most of his men through with him, he and they are being irretrievably damaged in the process.
... "We have no intention of winning but you must die anyway," is what keeps running through Clare's mind as he comes back from the war to an indifferent America.

Martin Woollcott

... as a novel about combat The Fearless Man ranks among the best to emerge from a war so politically and emotionally charged. ... One cannot read this book without wondering whether American fighting men and women will come

home from a different war with the same bitter sense that they were sent to die on a fool's errand ...

William Prochnau

... suddenly the book feels all-encompassing, even weirdly eternal ...
Pfarrer wants us to go commando ... Our reward is a book that unites clear, tight language with painful imagery. Pfarrer bluntly evokes the horrible etiquette of warfare, as when Mac commands a unit to run right through Vietcong fire. Mac's mordant, sarcastic gunner cheats death regularly, always with a smirk. He tells Mac after one close call: "In a weak moment I decided I loved life."

Claire Dederer

Read More