Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers is an intense story, which was written by Robert Stone. It takes place in the 1970’s during the Vietnam War. The main character John Converse, a journalist, goes over to write a story but ends up coming back in the drug business. John gives a man named Hicks, who is also one of the more important characters, a large amount of heroin for him to take to John’s wife back in the states.  Once John comes back to the states though, he finds himself in a mess of where he is beaten and forced by two men to find his wife, Marge, and the heroin.  The story starts out in Vietnam and works its way through California, starting in San Francisco and ending in the very South near the boarder of Mexico. 

There are really only about three main characters throughout the book. Those being, John Converse who starts up the drug deal in Vietnam and spends most of his time in the book searching for his wife and drugs. Marge is Johns wife, she plays a big part in the book by helping with the drug deal, though she never knew of it until a man named Hicks told her about her husband and what he wanted them to do.  The last one is Hicks, he helps John deliver the drugs back to the United States, but also takes Marge along with him the entire rest of the book, running away from men who are chasing them and the heroin.  There were plenty of other characters in the book but they weren’t consistently there, they usually only played a small role in the story.  

For me this story was intense and somewhat violent, but I really enjoyed it. I thought that it was very well written and a great book. Dog Soldiers did include a lot of dug use though as well as usage of inappropriate language. Some of the characters were very rude towards the women, by the way they treated them and how the spoke to them. The drug use and intensity of the story really caught my attention. With that said, I would most definitely recommend this book to some of my friends.  I find that the thing that most interested me was the drugs and how this whole book played out, with John looking for his wife and all of them being involved in drug deals.  

Robert Stone did an incredible job in writing his book Dog Soldiers; it was an amazing book and was written in great style and tone. One that is definitely worth reading and a winner of the National Book Award.