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Buffalo Afternoon
For Pete Bravado, the war begins with home and family in Brooklyn: his grandfather's broken dreams, his father's ice-hard heart, his mother's tragic affection, and his own disillusionment and delinquency. Raised against the grain of his true nature, Pete seeks escape in the army -- but instead of finding freedom, he finds a madness in himself that answers the madness of war. And when he comes home, a new struggle begins -- a struggle to see what the war has made him, so he can begin to remake himself.
535 pages, Hardcover
Published May 6, 1989
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178 people want to read
About the author
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
34 books71 followersSusan Fromberg Schaeffer was an American novelist and poet who was a Professor of English at Brooklyn College for more than thirty years. She won numerous national writing awards and contributed book reviews for the New York Times.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fr...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fr...
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 7, 2013
The different chapters switch between different times and places, but they are all about Pete, as a child and as a Vietnam veteran. The first chapter is beautiful - in its description of rice paddies, water buffalo and village life there in Vietnam. Then in chapter two it is after the war. Look at these lines from this chapter:
"When you go over there, no one tells you. You are going to have to live with these memories the rest of your life. This is one blackboard, man, that doesn't erase."
"I have to tell the truth to myself because I am going to die with myself."
Chapters three through six focus on Pete's family and his life as a child growing up in Brooklyn. His grandfather was an Italian immigrant. You learn his story too. They are Catholic. It is the writing that attracts - funny and wise at the same time.
"Every day is like a box of Cracker Jacks. Always a different prize in it."
There are so very many funny lines, but to really understand the humor, I would need to quote whole paragraphs, dialogs..... Believe me when I say that Pete and his friends will have you smiling. Now he is only ten. They have gotten a hold of a pink negligee and Ed says to Pete something like, "Girls go crazy over anything that is pink!" Ed is a little older and has taken him under his wing. Cute stuff that will have you chuckling. I had no idea that this would be a coming-of-age story with humor.
I keep wanting to quote lines, so just one more, and then that will have to be enough. This is Pete, I think he is eleven now, thinking about the difference between his father's behavior and that of the women in his family:
"Women, he saw, were not like that. They could imagine two or three right ways for things to be done. When he thought of his mother and grandmother and aunt talking in the kitchen, he thought women believed there were as many right ways to do things as there were people. He tended to believe the same thing, but he suspected such beliefs were womenly, and it was best not to encourage them."
The above describes the beginning of the book. It comes to explain why Pete enlists and goes to the Vietnam War. The next section describes the Vietnam War experience, and it is difficult reading. Very difficult, regardless of the fact that there is great humor. The humor is ironical. You laugh at the stupidity of man. You could not read this without the humor..... I particularly liked that the war episode follows a limited group of individuals. This section reminded me of the highly acclaimed Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War. There is one major difference, in Schaeffer's book the focus is on a small group of individuals. You meet them on a deeper more intimate level, and I prefer this.
The final section of the book focuses on how the individuals we have met during the war deal with their war experiences. It deals with PTSD and the final resolution. I will even tell you that
What this book does is thoroughly look at the Vietnam experience for those soldiers who were there. Who ended up in that war? What were their experiences? You get the dirty details of that fighting! How did the Vietnamese people experience this war? Those who lived through it, how did they cope with life afterwards? How did they look at life afterwards? All of it is realistic, although at times there are surreal elements. Not only the facts but also one's emotional response is focused upon. You get a more complete look at the entire war experience than you do in Matterhorn. The scope is much larger!
There is humor and there is compassion in this book. I highly recommend it, if you are up to reading about the truth of that war.
Paul Boehmer narrated the audiobook. It was excellently done. I will give the book four stars, but the narrator gets five. It was through his intonations that you heard the humor. Each character and each situation was perfectly executed - the shrill voice of a woman, the psychologist's "Oh?", the soldiers' jokes. At first I was wondering if the lines were making me laugh or the narration. It was in fact both. The lines and the narration were perfectly matched.
"When you go over there, no one tells you. You are going to have to live with these memories the rest of your life. This is one blackboard, man, that doesn't erase."
"I have to tell the truth to myself because I am going to die with myself."
Chapters three through six focus on Pete's family and his life as a child growing up in Brooklyn. His grandfather was an Italian immigrant. You learn his story too. They are Catholic. It is the writing that attracts - funny and wise at the same time.
"Every day is like a box of Cracker Jacks. Always a different prize in it."
There are so very many funny lines, but to really understand the humor, I would need to quote whole paragraphs, dialogs..... Believe me when I say that Pete and his friends will have you smiling. Now he is only ten. They have gotten a hold of a pink negligee and Ed says to Pete something like, "Girls go crazy over anything that is pink!" Ed is a little older and has taken him under his wing. Cute stuff that will have you chuckling. I had no idea that this would be a coming-of-age story with humor.
I keep wanting to quote lines, so just one more, and then that will have to be enough. This is Pete, I think he is eleven now, thinking about the difference between his father's behavior and that of the women in his family:
"Women, he saw, were not like that. They could imagine two or three right ways for things to be done. When he thought of his mother and grandmother and aunt talking in the kitchen, he thought women believed there were as many right ways to do things as there were people. He tended to believe the same thing, but he suspected such beliefs were womenly, and it was best not to encourage them."
The above describes the beginning of the book. It comes to explain why Pete enlists and goes to the Vietnam War. The next section describes the Vietnam War experience, and it is difficult reading. Very difficult, regardless of the fact that there is great humor. The humor is ironical. You laugh at the stupidity of man. You could not read this without the humor..... I particularly liked that the war episode follows a limited group of individuals. This section reminded me of the highly acclaimed Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War. There is one major difference, in Schaeffer's book the focus is on a small group of individuals. You meet them on a deeper more intimate level, and I prefer this.
The final section of the book focuses on how the individuals we have met during the war deal with their war experiences. It deals with PTSD and the final resolution. I will even tell you that
What this book does is thoroughly look at the Vietnam experience for those soldiers who were there. Who ended up in that war? What were their experiences? You get the dirty details of that fighting! How did the Vietnamese people experience this war? Those who lived through it, how did they cope with life afterwards? How did they look at life afterwards? All of it is realistic, although at times there are surreal elements. Not only the facts but also one's emotional response is focused upon. You get a more complete look at the entire war experience than you do in Matterhorn. The scope is much larger!
There is humor and there is compassion in this book. I highly recommend it, if you are up to reading about the truth of that war.
Paul Boehmer narrated the audiobook. It was excellently done. I will give the book four stars, but the narrator gets five. It was through his intonations that you heard the humor. Each character and each situation was perfectly executed - the shrill voice of a woman, the psychologist's "Oh?", the soldiers' jokes. At first I was wondering if the lines were making me laugh or the narration. It was in fact both. The lines and the narration were perfectly matched.
October 20, 2011
I read about the author while reading her obituary in the Los Angeles Times several weeks ago. The article said she had written a critically acclaimed book about Vietnam. People thought she could not write a book about the war in Vietnam.....she certainly did, and it was a wonderful read. It was an emotional roller coaster throughout the book.
January 8, 2012
I recommend this book to all who did not live through the 60s and 70s or did not intimately know any Vietnam veterans. It is a phenomenally good book, and, because of its broad scope, a hugely informative one.
January 31, 2012
This book was really astonishing; I can't believe that I didn't know about it before. It should be required reading for anyone whose responsibility it is to "wage war". Also for anyone who was in Vietnam or knew anyone who served. And for anyone who loves a vet of any war. It is beautifully written and lyrical in many places. But the atrocities - on both sides - and details of the war were very difficult to read. I felt like I was there. I ached for all these good (and not so good) men. And Pete's Mom and brother. Please read it; you will not be sorry you did.
October 2, 2011
A beautifully written account of Brooklynite & Vietnam Vet, Pete Bravado. The Vietnam scenes are achingly & brutally frank. Susan F. Schaeffer recently died: her NYTimes obit mentioned this book as a definitive Vietnam novel.
November 20, 2015
Amazing. Amazing book. The writing was captivating - unsentimental, yet conjuring up so many images and emotions. I have no idea how this got on my reading list and didn't know anything about the author, but I now want to read her other novels.
May 24, 2017
When we're children, life seems to stretch to infinity. We dream endless possibilities. Then life happens and we grow up. Time speeds up. We put aside our dreams--or many of us do. Or they get pushed so far down inside us that we think they never existed. Single moments, single days or nights, a place, all can etch themselves so indelibly into our psyches that we are seemingly powerless before them.
These are the elements that run through this long, painful, and compelling novel. Peter Bravado defines himself in relation to his family, yet he is desperate to escape its confines. The dichotomy at the center of the family is the opposition between the people who want to nurture Pete as a sensitive, intelligent, curious boy, and his father, who has no use for books and even less patience for anything that isn't related to work or learning a trade or making money. Caught between these poles, Pete is also caught between constant fear and apprehension of the unknown and unknowable and a fierce rage at his sense of powerlessness. He narrowly escapes a life in crime by enlisting and going to Vietnam as a mechanic. But he soon discovers that in war, few people actually do the job they trained for. Mechanics, cooks, chaplains--all become soldiers, and all must kill.
Filled with vibrant portrayals of rural life in Vietnam, the working-class Italian neighborhoods of New York City, or the day-to-day experiences of young men sent into the jungle on missions that were constantly being revised even as they were being executed: this book is a tour de force made up of small, deeply personal stories woven together into a sweeping tapestry.
These are the elements that run through this long, painful, and compelling novel. Peter Bravado defines himself in relation to his family, yet he is desperate to escape its confines. The dichotomy at the center of the family is the opposition between the people who want to nurture Pete as a sensitive, intelligent, curious boy, and his father, who has no use for books and even less patience for anything that isn't related to work or learning a trade or making money. Caught between these poles, Pete is also caught between constant fear and apprehension of the unknown and unknowable and a fierce rage at his sense of powerlessness. He narrowly escapes a life in crime by enlisting and going to Vietnam as a mechanic. But he soon discovers that in war, few people actually do the job they trained for. Mechanics, cooks, chaplains--all become soldiers, and all must kill.
Filled with vibrant portrayals of rural life in Vietnam, the working-class Italian neighborhoods of New York City, or the day-to-day experiences of young men sent into the jungle on missions that were constantly being revised even as they were being executed: this book is a tour de force made up of small, deeply personal stories woven together into a sweeping tapestry.
March 18, 2021
Pete Bravado was thought special by his grand parents but, after an abusive relationship with his father and a stint in reform school, he joined the army and wound up in Viet Nam. An intense description of the day to day atrocities he experienced left him with PTSD and tainted everything he did after his return. The novel is well written but very disturbing with a confusing conclusion...it took me a while to get through it.
September 13, 2018
Few books leave an impression that lasts the better part of your adult lifetime, but this one has never let me since reading it when it first came out. Lyrical, violent, moving, gripping and one of the definitive books of the Vietnam war, along with "The Things They Carried" and "Dispatches".
November 9, 2020
Really enjoyed this one. Back in college (late 80's) I read a lot of historical fiction about the American military experience in Vietnam. This one, along with The Things They Carried, is a standout.
April 25, 2019
A little too realistic rendition of soldiers in the Vietnam War....taken from soldier testimony. Well written.
June 9, 2019
I stumbled upon this on a used book rack a couple of weeks ago. I'd read it and loved it before, two or three times, but savored it anew. One of the best war novels ever, IMO.
February 29, 2020
Another re-read. Brutal story of a man’s life before, during and after the Vietnam war. Well written
May 20, 2017
In a sense, I'm doing as Pete did: looking back and saying- "Hey, what happened?" I also grew up in the 50s, 60s in a place not so far from Brooklyn. I was moved to read "Buffalo Afternoon" because I've always felt irresponsible never knowing what actually happened to those who 'saw action' in Vietnam. Yeah, my cousins were there, but like Pete, they didn't talk about it.
Let me say I found it an agonizing read, even before our protagonist arrives in 'Nam. Third generation Italian, Fathers assuring Sons of their worthlessness, physical and emotional abuse a constant. Mothers and daughters powerless. This is just a taste from Pete's Mother as she returns from the 'Home' on Staten Island where Pete's Dad has forced her to place their youngest child with Down's Syndrome: "How she cried as the ferry made it's slow way through the water, reddening her eyes and swelling her lids, but by the time she took the three buses home, she was smiling as if nothing had happened. Her husband had sent her son away. Now he belonged only to her. Now her sorrow belonged only to her. For the first time, she thought bitterly, she had something of her own."
The scope of Fromberg Schaeffer's Vietnam narrative through Pete's story is epic: detailed, beautiful on one hand and even more horrifying on the other. Her description of Pete's difficulties as a returning 'Vet' record another uphill battle. I did not like being depressed for Pete for 500+ pages. I thought some good editing would have made "Buffalo Afternoon" more crisp and readable. The conclusion included: dreams? magical realism? what? I found it confusing and a cop-out for tying up all the loose ends. In short, this is a book for those who want a better handle on what happened during the Vietnam War for the soldiers there. For others, not recommended.
Let me say I found it an agonizing read, even before our protagonist arrives in 'Nam. Third generation Italian, Fathers assuring Sons of their worthlessness, physical and emotional abuse a constant. Mothers and daughters powerless. This is just a taste from Pete's Mother as she returns from the 'Home' on Staten Island where Pete's Dad has forced her to place their youngest child with Down's Syndrome: "How she cried as the ferry made it's slow way through the water, reddening her eyes and swelling her lids, but by the time she took the three buses home, she was smiling as if nothing had happened. Her husband had sent her son away. Now he belonged only to her. Now her sorrow belonged only to her. For the first time, she thought bitterly, she had something of her own."
The scope of Fromberg Schaeffer's Vietnam narrative through Pete's story is epic: detailed, beautiful on one hand and even more horrifying on the other. Her description of Pete's difficulties as a returning 'Vet' record another uphill battle. I did not like being depressed for Pete for 500+ pages. I thought some good editing would have made "Buffalo Afternoon" more crisp and readable. The conclusion included: dreams? magical realism? what? I found it confusing and a cop-out for tying up all the loose ends. In short, this is a book for those who want a better handle on what happened during the Vietnam War for the soldiers there. For others, not recommended.
May 28, 2015
I have been an admirer of Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's work since I was a teenager and came across one of her novels, and always felt it a shame that she isn't better known. II came across a second hand copy of Buffalo Afternoon completely by chance, and put everything else aside to read it. She is a remarkable stylist and every character is complex and develops in unexpected ways. The part of the book set in Vietnam is often quite difficult to read given the (necessary) violence and trauma depicted, but she shows us the development of the men's relationships, and their complicated relationships with the Vietnamese (soldiers, villagers, prostitutes). It is frank portrait of both sides - there are no winners.
It is a long book (which I love), but I felt more time could have been spent on the protagonist's life when he returned to America. That part of the book often seemed a bit sketchy and underdeveloped, which was disappointing given that it was a particularly intriguing part of the story - how he as an individual readjusts to American society, and how America came to terms with the veterans as individuals and as a social force.
But these are small quibbles - it is a wonderful book.
It is a long book (which I love), but I felt more time could have been spent on the protagonist's life when he returned to America. That part of the book often seemed a bit sketchy and underdeveloped, which was disappointing given that it was a particularly intriguing part of the story - how he as an individual readjusts to American society, and how America came to terms with the veterans as individuals and as a social force.
But these are small quibbles - it is a wonderful book.
September 13, 2013
Serving in Vietnam, Pete witnesses a buddy carried to the medevac, calling for his leg. Pete hands him his leg and stands dumbfounded as the friend clutches it, as he's loaded into the helicopter. Pete witnesses an ARVN smash a new baby, headfirst into a tree. And he watches a truck explode, leaving two friends nothing but skeletons from the hips down.
Needless to say, the imagery is vivid, sometimes hallucinogenic. The kid from Brooklyn, thrust into the Apocalyptic nightmare of jungle warfare. Juxtaposed with his immigrant grandfather's ideal of America is Pete's own crushed ideal of atonement and valor.
Can these atrocities have been real?
Could anyone have survived with his sanity intact? The reader accompanies these young men into the tunnels, & feels the seductive heat when a grass hut goes up in a whump of flame.
Returning to a normal life in his hometown is nearly impossible. There were times, after the 500th page, long past the denouement, when I thought the ending was long overdue. But it was rewarding to follow Pete through to the final resolution.
Needless to say, the imagery is vivid, sometimes hallucinogenic. The kid from Brooklyn, thrust into the Apocalyptic nightmare of jungle warfare. Juxtaposed with his immigrant grandfather's ideal of America is Pete's own crushed ideal of atonement and valor.
Can these atrocities have been real?
Could anyone have survived with his sanity intact? The reader accompanies these young men into the tunnels, & feels the seductive heat when a grass hut goes up in a whump of flame.
Returning to a normal life in his hometown is nearly impossible. There were times, after the 500th page, long past the denouement, when I thought the ending was long overdue. But it was rewarding to follow Pete through to the final resolution.
March 16, 2011
I read this book back in high school 03, this was the first novel I had read from beginning to end. It was recommended to me by a teacher after I told her, "Books just don't keep me interested". My love for reality in war was quickly picked up by my teacher and she handed me this book in its original Teal cover. The story from beginning to end is a great portrayal of the times back during Vietnam. This follows the story of a young troubled man from young adulthood to a hardened Vietnam vet. The gore and action in this book at sometimes made me cringe as the pictures developed in my head. If you have a liking for good war books, pick this one up, you won't be disappointed.
Want to read
January 1, 2018contemporary:vietnam-----------not read yet
December 11, 2008
The BEST war story that I have encountered. Excellent character development. Hard to put this one down! A great find for reading clubs!
August 28, 2010
A heartbreaking story of a young man before, during and after his tour of duty in Viet Nam.
May 27, 2015
not to my liking
Read
February 7, 2014Very depressing at times. Yet helpful to understand trama of the era.
September 25, 2015
This gripping novel proves that a compelling war story can be told by someone who wasn't in the war portrayed.
March 7, 2007
Could not finish this, one of the worst books that I ever started.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews