“Narrator Bronson Pinchot should get a medal for his extraordinary portrayal of Lieutenant Waino Mellas…Pinchot breathes life into each member of Mellas’ Bravo Company…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile
Description
An incredible publishing story—written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, a New York Times bestseller for sixteen weeks, a National Indie Next, and a USA Today bestseller—Matterhorn has been hailed as a "brilliant account of war" (New York Times Book Review).
Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones' The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.
Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable story that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice—a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.
A bonus PDF is included, with maps, a Chain of Command hierarchy, a glossary, and other interesting facts and information.
Praise
“Narrator Bronson Pinchot should get a medal for his extraordinary portrayal of Lieutenant Waino Mellas…Pinchot breathes life into each member of Mellas’ Bravo Company…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile
“Carefully constructed and beautifully realized…Filled with truth, wisdom, love, and a rich vein of dark gallows humor.” Newsweek
“Marlantes writes with a spare clarity, but he’s unafraid to plumb the emotions of the young men in Bravo Company…More than any living American novelist I’ve read, Marlantes made me feel what I already must have known: that war is worse than hell. There it is.” Michael Schaub, NPR book reviewer
“Marlantes’ epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative…A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field, and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences…a grand accomplishment.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“What makes this novel so irresistible is Marlantes’ skill at peeling away the many layers of truth in combat…Marlantes’ depiction of men under stress—no matter what race or background—is searing and complex. Matterhorn will not only take its place on the top shelf of war fiction, it’s going to knock a few books off. It’s that good.” BookPage
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Mar 22, 2010 |
| Release Date | March 23, 2010 |
| Release Date Machine | 1269302400 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, War & Military, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
Karl Marlantes, a cum-laude graduate of Yale University and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, was a marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. His novel Matterhorn and his nonfiction book What It Is Like to Go to War, both based on his combat experience, are also both New York Times bestsellers.
Narrator Bio
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Overview
An incredible publishing story—written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, a New York Times bestseller for sixteen weeks, a National Indie Next, and a USA Today bestseller—Matterhorn has been hailed as a "brilliant account of war" (New York Times Book Review).
Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones' The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.
Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable story that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice—a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.
A bonus PDF is included, with maps, a Chain of Command hierarchy, a glossary, and other interesting facts and information.
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