Hooper's War

by Peter Van Buren

In this powerful anti-war novel set in WWII Japan, Lieutenant Nate Hooper isn't sure he'll survive the fight. And if he does make it home, he isn't sure he can survive the peace. He's done a terrible thing, and struggles to resolve the mistake alongside an unrepentant Japanese soldier and a Japanese woman who is trying to save both men. The characters face a decision that will forever define them not by their war against each other, but by their war against themselves. This is a tale of moral complexity, of decisions that last longer than people do. With allegorical connections to America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reverse chronology telling of Hooper's War turns a loss-of-innocence narrative into a tale of why that loss is inevitable.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2017

About the author

United States Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and author of Hooper's War Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq. Following his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began legal proceedings against him, falsely claiming the book revealed classified material. Through the efforts of the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department with his First Amendment rights intact.

His second book, Ghosts of Tom Joad, A Story of the #99Percent is a novel about the social and economic changes in America after WWII and the decline of the blue collar middle class in the 1980s. The book anticipated the conditions that led many in America's Rust Belt to help elect Donald Trump.

Van Buren returns now with a deeply-researched anti-war novel, Hooper's War. Set in WWII Japan, Lieutenant Nate Hooper isn't sure he'll survive his war. And if he does make it home, he isn't sure he can survive the peace. He's done a terrible thing, and struggles to resolve the mistake he made alongside a Japanese soldier, and a Japanese woman who failed to save both men. At stake in this story of moral injury? Souls.

With allegorical connections to America's current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reverse chronology telling of Hooper's War ("Fighting over the covers is better than remembering the empty side of the bed," Hooper says) turns a loss-of-innocence narrative into a complex tale of why that loss is inevitable in societies that go to war. Think Matterhorn and The Things They Carried, crossed with Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five.

Follow Peter on Twitter @wemeantwell and at www.wemeantwell.com

Reviews

[Raymond Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooper's War is a fascinating and riveting counterfactual account set in immediate post-World War II Japan. Counterfactual because its premise examines a historical outcome where the United States did not release weapons of mass destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and instead, relied on firebombing of Kyoto to force the Japanese to surrender. It is a fast-moving narrative, a real page turner.

Peter Van Buren, using a technique of moving his storytelling across space (from the American soldier perspective to the Japanese soldier and civilian perspective) and across time (from the present to the past and back to the present in random intervals) reduces both dimensions to a single inescapable and irrefutable truth, the validity and morality (or lack thereof) of modern war. He raises many questions, and like life itself, leaves many questions unanswered, directly, so the reader can reach his or her own conclusions.

Scholars and students of military history, soldiers, diplomats, and general readers will gain much from a careful reading of Hooper's War.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooper's War by Peter Van Buren is an alternative history of World War II with a deep message about war. Peter Van Buren is a former foreign service officer, author, and first amendment rights defender by circumstance. His previous book The Ghosts of Tom Joad; The Story of the #99 tells a very realistic story of the fall of the rust belt cities that took me back to my days of growing up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Hooper's War is an interesting book for reasons beyond it being a good war story. It runs along the lines of Philip Caputo but not as in your face as Dalton Trumbo. Van Buren sets his story in 1946 as the war has reached mainland Japan. This twist is particularly interesting because the atomic bombs are not mentioned in the story. To many, WWII was when the United States wore the white hat and took the high moral ground. The atomic bombs were perhaps the only recognizable scar on that victory. Since then we fought Korea to a draw. Vietnam brings to mind My Lai and the evacuation of the American Embassy. Iraq and Afghanistan were left unfinished. World War II was America's just victory.

Hooper is an infantry lieutenant, far from his hometown in Ohio. He is leading a group of mostly inexperienced men in combat on mainland Japan. His unit was a mix of inexperienced soldiers with a few experienced NonCommissioned Officers who help lead and help the fresh lieutenant. The violence of the landing and coordination are well done. Van Buren brings an important aspect of the war with Japan to light. In the novel, Kyoto is fire bombed.

In real history, the fire bombing of Dresden was devastating; the German city was completely destroyed in a precision bombing raid. In Japan, precision bombing was abandoned and fire bombing was even more destructive. Cities there had an industrial center and were surrounded with wooden housing. Bombs were dropped near the target and the fires spread inward. The fires burned toward the city center trapping the population. Emergency services were overloaded and unable to prevent the spread of fire. Essentially, the entire city was burned to the ground and that included much of the civilian population. The 1945 firebombing of Tokyo produced more immediate casualties than the atomic bombs at Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The story works its way mostly backward through the fictional history and for a large part takes place near the firebombed city of Kyoto. This is where the majority of the principles and morality of war take place. Through Hooper's words, he tells the reader what he and his men experienced. There is also a Japanese soldier, Eichi Nakagawa, telling his story and a civilian woman, Naoko, with a connection to both Hooper and Nakagawa. Through the perspective of these three people many questions about war and who is right, if anyone, is raised. The immediate leadership on both sides comes into play with the strict discipline and idea of duty and honor to the average Japanese soldier. The Americans see themselves as liberators and question the resistance to freedom. Hooper's men are given ice cream for completing their mission against the enemy, while Japanese civilians starve. There is a Major Moreland who hopes to wear down the resistance by limiting their supplies and demoralizing the enemy. His attitude is strikingly close to a Vietnam War general with a similar name.

Hooper's War is an excellent war story and what makes it such is that it is not about the glory of war and the killing of people. It is about what war really is for those who fight it and those who experience it. There is a complexity that escapes many people and even those fighting. Hooper asks Naoko to the effect of "Why don't you give up and except freedom?" He does not understand that he is now seen as an invader, not a liberator. Decades later people in power and fighting in Iraq would ask the same questions of Iraqi resistance. Van Buren uses alternative history to present questions asked in probably every war in history. He portrays war as two forces fighting, both believing they are right.

[Alistair P D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooper's War is billed as an anti-war novel and it is that, deservedly mentioned in the same breath as Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse 5. Although not as bizarre in its narrative outworking as How I Won The War - another pointed anti-war novel that uses absurdity to make its point - Hooper's War gives us the trenchant observations of the eponymous main character, Lt Nate Hooper, who mixes irony, outrage, disgust as he chronicles in reverse order an imaginary invasion of Japan in the final phase of WWII.

Alongside Hooper Van Buren gives us the story of Japanese Imperial Army Sergeant Eichi Nakagawa, who is not only Hooper's largely unmet foil, but also a reminder of the enemy's humanity, expressed nevertheless with delicate sensitivity towards cultural differences. Through Sgt Nakagawa we learn that in the Imperial Army also the bizarre has a place.

Between the two men stands the strong-minded Naoko, a determined woman who is forthright in her condemnation of the war and the martial conceits with which Hooper (and the Americans) and Nakagawa (and the Japanese) bolster their fight.

Five Stars and a definite recommendation.

[Xerodog · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very good anti-war book, but I felt that the writing was uneven and that the early chapters especially were choppy and stilted. However, I think that it was a worthwhile read and the craft did improve as the story unfolded.

[Lewis Liberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Powerful war story with plenty to think about long after you're finished. Highly recommended - great if you can read it together in a group and talk about.

[Scott Butki · Rating 2 out of 5]

My interview: http://blogcritics.org/interview-pete...

One of my upcoming author interviews is for this book. I was intrigued when the publicist explained the author "brings to life the under-reported and important experience of war veterans known as "moral injury" in his anti-war novel set in WWII."


Kirkus Reviews: "The dialogue captures the raw emotion of war and the soldiers’ struggles for self-preservation...Hooper is an engaging protagonist...Van Buren doesn’t provide simple answers, and readers are left with the understanding that decisions made in battle can be both right and wrong at the same time...A complex portrayal of a counterfactual invasion."