Book Review: War is Heaven

Book Review: 'War is Heaven' by D. Keith Mano

1 / 5 Stars

 

David Keith Mano (1942 - 2016) wrote a number of novels in the 1970s, most of which received critical acclaim. Mano was a religious man and his novels often featured religious themes, particularly in regard to Christianity (Mano was an Episcopalian).

 

His 1973 novel 'The Bridge' is frank science fiction. My review of that novel is here.

 

'War is Heaven' first was published in hardcover in 1970. This mass market paperback edition (254 pp.) was published by Avon Books in July, 1971. 

I picked up 'War is Heaven' thinking it was an allegorical treatment of the Vietnam war, which by 1970 was very unpopular in the US. But 'War is Heaven' is not an allegorical treatment of the Vietnam war, but in fact, an examination of morality and Christianity in the context of the sort of 'dirty war' that Vietnam exemplified.

 

The novel takes place in the near future, in a fictional Central American country called Camaguay. A Marxist rebellion, led by so-called 'Riffs,' has broken out in Camaguay, threatening the rule of right-wing dictator General Amayo, and the welfare of the American corporations that operate plantations in the countryside. The American government has dispatched Green Beret-style troops, known as the Irregular Command (IC), to lead teams of Camaguayan soldiers in a counterinsurgency campaign against the Riffs.

Corpsman Andrew Jones, a young black man, has just joined the IC team. A Navy corpsman, Jones had no intention of serving in the ground war, but drawing a short straw has led him to his assignment with the IC. Filled with self-pity and bitterness over his bad luck, Jones loathes the terrain and the assignment.

 

Also members of the IC are Lieutenant Storch, who essentially has abdicated command to his Sergeant, Clarence Hook. 

 

A man with the appearance and demeanor of an Old Testament prophet, Hook has acquired something of a legendary aura in the eyes of the Camaguayan infantry accompanying the Americans. Hook has seemingly miraculous luck; bullet miss him, while his own fire is lethal. Hook has an uncanny ability to evade booby traps and ambushes and even the pestilential insects of the jungle are unable to prey on him.

 

Then there are the enlisted men: the diminutive, but intense, former minor league pitcher, Horace Baxter; the repulsive Joe Garbini; Tom Hall, who increasingly is mentally unbalanced due to the knowledge that back in the states, his wife is cheating on him; and Lancelot Falk, who has joined the IC in an effort to live up to the example set by his brother Clay, a hero who died in Vietnam. 

 

Early in the novel the IC and their Camaguayan charges set off on a lengthy walk into the interior of the country; at the journey's completion lies a rendezvous with an allied force.

 

Save for some too-brief moments of combat action, the narrative is occupied with depicting, in labored fashion, the various psychological, moral, and emotional travails of the American participants. There is much 'telling,' and limited 'showing.' Sergeant Hook, being a devout Christian, serves as a conduit through which the author can address the conundrum of how a military man can reconcile the moral dilemma of killing other men, with adhering to a religion that espouses peace and nonviolence. 

 

In a manner similar to that of Priest, the protagonist of 'The Bridge,' Hook's journey through the violent, but colorful, landscape of Central America is a kind of extreme pilgrimage, designed to test a man's ability to maintain his moral compass when pitted against amoral antagonists.

 

The closing chapters of the novel revolve around the themes of physical pain and whether this is to be embraced in holiness, as in emulating Jesus Christ's torment on the cross. A putative war novel is an awkward vehicle for addressing these issues: I finished 'War is Heaven' thinking it a misfire both as a antiwar novel, and as an exegesis on religious belief in wartime. This novel is for Mano completists only.