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Shoot
This novel was quite bizarre. It was quite unbelieveable, but was nonetheless riveting right to the last page. In fact I could not put it down for the last quarter. In this age of political correctness, I don't think this type of novel would be written now, but as a snapshot of the time it was written (the early '70's) it encapsulates the era very well. In essence it is about the frustrations of a small US town full of World War II and Vietnam veterans. After facing hell on earth, these men find it extremely difficult to settle back into their mundane 9 to 5 lives that existed prior to conflict. They live for the weekends where they can take up arms and go hunting. Imagine the surprise of five ex World War II buddies who are winding up after a weekend of bonding and hunting to find themselves under fire from a similar hunting party across a river. This isn't countries at war, but neighbouring towns... From the first person view of Rex Jeannette, the encounter is clinically analysed, investigated and acted upon. While Rex is totally believeable as a man with a large ego who appears extremely intelligent, the paranoia he exhibits in reflecting on the incident leaves the reader in disbelief. However perhaps Rex was more insightful than we give him credit for... A very quick read, but one you won't forget.
208 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Douglas Fairbairn
16 books4 followersDouglas Behl Fairbairn was an American author.
His novels include A Man's World (1956), A Squirrel of One's Own (1971), Shoot (1973), A Squirrel Forever (1975), Street 8 (1977) and his memoir, Down and Out in Cambridge (1982).
His screen credits include the television episode "A Man's World" (based on his novel of the same title) for Studio One in Hollywood, the episode "The Voice of Charlie Pont" on Alcoa Premiere (1962), and a full-length feature film from his novel Shoot (1976; adapted by Richard Berg).
He attended but did not graduate from Harvard College, where he was editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He returned to the Miami area where he would live out the rest of his life.
His novels include A Man's World (1956), A Squirrel of One's Own (1971), Shoot (1973), A Squirrel Forever (1975), Street 8 (1977) and his memoir, Down and Out in Cambridge (1982).
His screen credits include the television episode "A Man's World" (based on his novel of the same title) for Studio One in Hollywood, the episode "The Voice of Charlie Pont" on Alcoa Premiere (1962), and a full-length feature film from his novel Shoot (1976; adapted by Richard Berg).
He attended but did not graduate from Harvard College, where he was editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He returned to the Miami area where he would live out the rest of his life.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 28, 2012
A rational army would run away.
~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
"This is what happened"
Thus begins Shoot.
Is there any such thing as “macho noir”? I’ve never heard of it, but if there were, then Shoot would certainly be a classic example.
Written in the early 1970's the book is heavy with the social and political issues of the time that were causing such upheaval in the United States.
It's also a well-written and clever way to cash in on the interest in such stories that was generated by
and the wildly popular 1971 movie that followed. No shame there. There were many Deliverance inspired clones published during the seventies. Most of them were just dreck. Shoot is one of the better ones.
The story is set somewhere in the mid-west. One weekend a group of long-time friends are out on their normal weekend hunting excursion. All are middle-aged men with a fondness for guns, hunting (i.e. killing) and all served in World War II and one of them in both WWII and Korea.
They encounter another group of hunters. Without warning one of the other hunters opens fire on the men, lightly wounding one of them. In turn Zeke ,one of the protagonists, returns fire and kills one of the other hunters.
From there the story takes off. Rex Jeannette is the group's Alpha male and the narrator of the story. He's a successful businessman who enjoys the company of men, loves guns,competition and is a Philanderer. He is a so-so husband (though he does provide a comfortable physical existence), hates his oldest son, who is a Hippie and campus agitator (it's the early seventies), and not afraid of anything and has no patience for anyone who is.
Rex is the leader of the group. He knows it and he enjoys the role. It's obvious that Rex's highlight in his life was World War II. With no war to fight he tackles other activities with his natural aggression. With the incident in the woods Rex sees an opportunity to fight a war again and he cajoles, coerces and leads his friends and others into going back into the woods.
The book is obviously a critique not only of the American Male, but of the Establishment (circa 1973), hunting, firearms/gun-owners, Republicans and the general condition of the environment in the United States in the early seventies. That is a lot of ground to cover in a slim 208 page novel,but Mr. Fairbairn pulls it off.
Now as a gun-owner and generally conservative individual I probably should be outraged by this book, but I'm not. It's a fast read and an interesting read. The ending really isn't a surprise, but the leading up to it is very well done.
What makes this novel interesting is how it portrays the men of the WWII generation. The so called "Greatest Generation".
Remember this book was written in the early seventies when that group was middle-aged and very much in charge. They weren't elderly grandfathers yet. They were at the top fat with power, influence and money. In the early seventies there was no gauzy sentimentality covering them. They were the bosses and there was a whole mess of problems happening in the United States at the time - as there always is. Being in charge means you get the flack when things go wrong. And in 1973 many things were going wrong.
Yes one can argue that it was pretty thankless on Fairbairn's part to savage those who went to World War II and then returned and built an economy that almost everyone benefited from for many years. Those veterans ensured that he was able to live in a system that allowed him the freedom to write such a scathing critique (of them), but that is our system. Freedom doesn't mean that those who have divergent views are stifled and gagged. Otherwise why did we fight World War II in the first place?
I have spent my entire adult life (44 years old at the time of this review being written) in either the U.S. Army or law enforcement. I've known many men like Rex and I have a love/hate relationship with them.
Sometimes the Rexs are very good at what they do and sometimes the Rexs of the world aren't very good at all. Regardless of how competent or incompetent they might be they do love being in charge and they seize the opportunity whenever they can. There is a belief that the Alpha Male is naturally competent as well. That isn't always the case, but that's just my own little snide opinion sneaking in. I'm also honest enough to admit that somebody has to be in charge and I don't like being that person. As a result I have followed the Rexs of this world into some questionable situations myself. I'm not clean. I don't live in an Ivory Tower.
Anyway what I'm trying to to say is that Fairbairn does an excellent job of capturing the Alpha Male in Rex. He also captures the other men and their willingness to follow him deeper into a bad situation. It's illogical and insane in a way, but Rex is in charge and they are his men. See the above quote by the Baron de Montesquieu.
So all in all a good read. Somewhat implausible, but engrossing, suspenseful and a fast, intelligent read. Reading it almost forty years after it was published the bite is gone. It's easier to view it from a more dispassionate perspective and appreciate it for it's merits rather than be wound up by it's political/social viewpoints.
Like so many of the books that I have reviewed here "Shoot" is long out of print. Finding it will take some effort. I was sent my copy by one of my Goodread friends for which I am very appreciative. If you find it give it a try. If nothing else look at it as a counterweight to the hero worshiping that is now occurring of the World War II generation. Not that we shouldn't appreciate what they went through and what they did for us, but blind worship can also be as bad as constantly undermining those in charge.
Good hunting.
July 25, 2013
Not really sure if this book is a parody of macho-man posturing, or that's what the author actually believes. Either way, it's a good noir, and a quick read. Probably bump it another star if I ever read another of his novels and the protagonist isn't going on and on about hippies and blacks (written in the early 70's) and his 10-inch cock when he's not attending to the actual plot of the book.
October 30, 2023
One of the older stories satirizing toxic masculinity that I’ve encountered. I could see this having influenced David Morrell’s First Blood (which few know but those that do know it as the book on which the first "Rambo" movie was based), written a few years later. I noted similarities between this narrator, Rex, and First Blood’s Sheriff Teasle, though First Blood while just as dark in content was not satire as Shoot is. Both Rex and Teasle are older decorated combat vets, alpha males, strong leaders who are unchecked in their communities. In the case of Rex here, he is much worse than Teasle. As we learn his story and understand his character, during a week between a violent shooting incident where he and a group of other WWII vet buddies are shot at while hunting and their subsequent drive for revenge against the perpetrators, we see him in his personal life. He is what the "me-too" movement was created for. In the mid part of the novel Rex blandly described a history taking advantage of vulnerable young women who work for him culminating in a violent rape.
I also think it's an interesting time capsule of when it was published, 1973, as Vietnam was ending and there were contrasts between veterans of WWII/Korea and Vietnam, which were later depicted in First Blood. Here the author was not really drawing a contrast between the generations. The two generations aren’t so disimilar, they were both somewhat lost, drifting through a meaninless existence and they deal with that in different ways based on their inner characters. Rex, as noted, is a womanizer, boozer, and violent sexual predator masquerading as a good friend and businessman. Hard to root for a guy like that, you really end up more concerned for the others he ropes into his battle against boredom. I’m not sure what readers’ attitudes were in the 1970s but this is not a “manly action lit” genre story, there is subtext here which I think some reviewers missed. Fairbairn doesn't glamorize the guns, boozing, sex, and machismo, he mocks it, he is blunt about it. Rex’s despicable actions and seeing him degrade and humiliate his friends, the author intentionally created a dislikable character. Eventually even his supposed friends see him for what he was. The Rambo of this story is introduced farther along. Olgilbie is a black highly decorated Vietnam vet whose struggles have led him to drug abuse, crime, inability to keep a job, and a fling with black nationalism. He joins the story while living with his sister in a self imposed austere existence unable to get his life back on track as it was pre-Vietnam. He is the quiet professional, the Rambo of this story.
Their antagonists are described as guys just like themselves. Its not a generational war, its a war between similar men who want to fight just because that’s what men do. Literally for no other reason than this side of the river is ours, and that side theirs, and that’s enough. And it certainly is a reason, whether its between nations or street gangs, plenty of blood has been shed over tribalism and arrogance.
I did feel the story drag in the middle a bit as Rex was busy showing his alpha-ness with his degrading treatment of women, juxtaposed with his emotional sympathetic connections with struggling vets looking for something where they can feel useful again. I found it interesting that Rex and his core buddies, all decorated WWII combat vets, are depicted as violent alcoholics reveling in their war exploits, obsessed with trivialities such as who recieved what medal. Not at all how WWII vets were depicted at least in the last thirty years where Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” and Ambrose’s books and the Band of Brothers serieis created an apple pie americana view of those veterans. They are anything but that in this book and I recall in other books and movies post WWII up until maybe the 90’s there was an edge to those veterans. I mean these are the guys who founded the Hells Angeles and other outlaw motorcycle gangs, right? I recall my grandfather and uncles who were WWII vets were a little more rambunctious and edgier when I was little, in the 1970s, and by the time I was an adult in the 90s they were quieter, more reflective of the war, their former enemy, etc… So I think this depiction is accurate.
The book veers towards the absurdism towards the end, something I find distracting even in a literary story such as this, when it appears towards the end of a novel which was conventional up to that point. A similar example of this where I found this distracting was in Jim Thompson’s The Getaway, which shifted towards the absurd in the last 1/4 or so, and also included some allegory at the end. I didn't see anything allegorical but the absurdist aspects actually worked ok here, I just didn't think it was necessary.
Overall, this was a wild read and definitely had some substance to it. Highly recommend if you can find a copy.
I also think it's an interesting time capsule of when it was published, 1973, as Vietnam was ending and there were contrasts between veterans of WWII/Korea and Vietnam, which were later depicted in First Blood. Here the author was not really drawing a contrast between the generations. The two generations aren’t so disimilar, they were both somewhat lost, drifting through a meaninless existence and they deal with that in different ways based on their inner characters. Rex, as noted, is a womanizer, boozer, and violent sexual predator masquerading as a good friend and businessman. Hard to root for a guy like that, you really end up more concerned for the others he ropes into his battle against boredom. I’m not sure what readers’ attitudes were in the 1970s but this is not a “manly action lit” genre story, there is subtext here which I think some reviewers missed. Fairbairn doesn't glamorize the guns, boozing, sex, and machismo, he mocks it, he is blunt about it. Rex’s despicable actions and seeing him degrade and humiliate his friends, the author intentionally created a dislikable character. Eventually even his supposed friends see him for what he was. The Rambo of this story is introduced farther along. Olgilbie is a black highly decorated Vietnam vet whose struggles have led him to drug abuse, crime, inability to keep a job, and a fling with black nationalism. He joins the story while living with his sister in a self imposed austere existence unable to get his life back on track as it was pre-Vietnam. He is the quiet professional, the Rambo of this story.
Their antagonists are described as guys just like themselves. Its not a generational war, its a war between similar men who want to fight just because that’s what men do. Literally for no other reason than this side of the river is ours, and that side theirs, and that’s enough. And it certainly is a reason, whether its between nations or street gangs, plenty of blood has been shed over tribalism and arrogance.
I did feel the story drag in the middle a bit as Rex was busy showing his alpha-ness with his degrading treatment of women, juxtaposed with his emotional sympathetic connections with struggling vets looking for something where they can feel useful again. I found it interesting that Rex and his core buddies, all decorated WWII combat vets, are depicted as violent alcoholics reveling in their war exploits, obsessed with trivialities such as who recieved what medal. Not at all how WWII vets were depicted at least in the last thirty years where Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” and Ambrose’s books and the Band of Brothers serieis created an apple pie americana view of those veterans. They are anything but that in this book and I recall in other books and movies post WWII up until maybe the 90’s there was an edge to those veterans. I mean these are the guys who founded the Hells Angeles and other outlaw motorcycle gangs, right? I recall my grandfather and uncles who were WWII vets were a little more rambunctious and edgier when I was little, in the 1970s, and by the time I was an adult in the 90s they were quieter, more reflective of the war, their former enemy, etc… So I think this depiction is accurate.
The book veers towards the absurdism towards the end, something I find distracting even in a literary story such as this, when it appears towards the end of a novel which was conventional up to that point. A similar example of this where I found this distracting was in Jim Thompson’s The Getaway, which shifted towards the absurd in the last 1/4 or so, and also included some allegory at the end. I didn't see anything allegorical but the absurdist aspects actually worked ok here, I just didn't think it was necessary.
Overall, this was a wild read and definitely had some substance to it. Highly recommend if you can find a copy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 21, 2016
I picked up this book as part of a bulk paperback purchase at an estate sale. Unfortunately, I just could not get into it. It could not grab me. In addition, it appears to me that it gives responsible gun owners-- a NRA life member and former prosecutor--- a bad name in the creating a macho story line. Maybe the fact it was published in 1973 has something to do with it, but I can't recommend it.
November 6, 2023
Six middle-aged male friends, all WWII veterans, get a chance to go back to war. The leader and narrator is highly unpleasant, but page-turning. Drink every time he mentions a different woman with whom he cheated on his wife!
3.5 stars. It certainly kept me turning the pages, but
This is another one mentioned in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Quoted is the first line: “This is what happened.”
3.5 stars. It certainly kept me turning the pages, but
This is another one mentioned in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Quoted is the first line: “This is what happened.”
Want to Read
November 14, 2011Stephen King recommended book. First mentioned in Chapter 3 of Berkley's 1983 paperback edition of Danse Macabre.
November 28, 2025
This obscure, forgotten book surfaced again after it caused a 2025 TV show being temporarily pulled due to plagiarism accusations (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...).
I read it out of curiosity and I am not sure where to place it. I think, given how on the nose the misogyny and the violence are that make most of the inner dialogue of the gun-toting WW II veteran who tells the story, I take it as a contemporary criticism of male toxicity. Also given that there is an enthusiastic blurb by John Updike ("a good fast tough tale").
Out of print and hard to find, but TIA has scans (https://archive.org/details/shootnove...) and EPUB (https://archive.org/details/shoot_pro...).
I read it out of curiosity and I am not sure where to place it. I think, given how on the nose the misogyny and the violence are that make most of the inner dialogue of the gun-toting WW II veteran who tells the story, I take it as a contemporary criticism of male toxicity. Also given that there is an enthusiastic blurb by John Updike ("a good fast tough tale").
Out of print and hard to find, but TIA has scans (https://archive.org/details/shootnove...) and EPUB (https://archive.org/details/shoot_pro...).
June 11, 2017
Exceptionally well-written story of a soldier in the times of peace whose war is not over. A PTSD that lies so still and hidden, it takes lives of many other people around whne it finally explodes.
March 5, 2026
This book has so many twist and turns an absolute thrill.
September 2, 2015
I read this in response to a recommendation by Stephen King. That is how I originally discovered James M Cain. This book was a lot harder to track down and not as rewarding. The book moved along quickly and seemed to a testosterone driven manic plunge into machismo. That being said, there were some good moments. The opening line being one, and some of the descriptive passages that followed. The writing style. However, the characters were not very sympathetic and I felt myself not caring about what had happened at the end.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews