Buffalo Soldiers

by Robert O'Connor

Set on a luxuriously appointed and hopelessly corrupt Army base in Mannheim, Germany, where the soldiers prefer real-life race riots to mock combat, Robert O'Connor's viciously funny novel is conclusive proof that peace is hell and the U.S. Army is its ninth circle.

In that hell, Specialist Ray Elwood is the ultimate survivor: a high-stakes drug dealer, bureaucratic con artist, and shrewd collector of other people's secrets. Elwood is contemplating cleaning up his act, although doing so will require one last, epic heroin deal. But of course it's then that his life will careen totally out of control. With its impeccably rendered cast of sycophants, drug burn-outs, and uniformed sociopaths, Buffalo Soldiers give us a scabrous, haunting vision of a military idled by the New World Order—and at all-out war with itself.

Genres: Fiction, Germany, Crime, Novels

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 1993

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only realised that the film Buffalo Soldiers was based on a book many years after first watching it. Indeed, it’s a favourite film of mine: a very dark comedy set amongst bored American soldiers stationed in 1980s West Germany. Joaquin Phoenix and Anna Paquin star. It’s impeccably acted, shot, and scripted, with a brilliant soundtrack. Having finally read the novel that inspired it, I wonder whether I would have bothered to watch the film had I encountered that first. While the film is a black comedy, the book is merely grim as fuck. The changes in the film version make for a neater, more meaningful, somewhat less nihilistic narrative. Perhaps the most significant alteration is that in the film Ray Elwood, the protagonist, deals heroin but does not get high on his own supply. In the book, he’s an addict. This is very obviously a terrible idea for a dealer, as literally every piece of crime-related media emphasises. The book spends more time on the US army’s simmering race war and deeply unpleasant soldier banter about women; the film gives more time to the misadventures of doped up tank drivers. Both book and film, I should add, paint a very convincing portrait of chaos in the the US army.

The other major difference is the ending. Spoilers for both book and film: in the film, Elwood throws himself out of the window and lands on his nemesis, surviving to graft another day. In the book, Elwood is thrown out of the window and the book ends, obviously implying that he dies. Another difference that felt gratuitous in the book: Elwood gets his new girlfriend addicted to heroin. As should be clear by now, I prefer the film version. Not merely because it is less grim, but also because it comments more strikingly on the US army and the Cold War. And it’s funny. I might have liked the book more had I not been judging it by the standards of a favourite film. O'Connor writes well and pulls off the difficult second person narration, but can’t equal military black humour like Catch-22 or Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. I recommend watching the film instead.

[Adrián Ciutat · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Myrror · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely loved this book, in fact read it twice, when it was published and then again several years later; as for the 2nd person perspective, i love this voice, and for anyone familiar with the seminal 'Bright Lights Big City' by McInerney, he employed the same voice in that work, which worked just as brilliantly; as mentioned, it has been awhile since i read this work, but i seem to recall it being a pretty cool love story as well, in a twisted way of course; as for the reference to Fight Club that i read in someone's review, that (also great) work came out three years after Buffalo Soldiers, so O'Connor could not have borrowed anything from Palahniuk when writing Buffalo Soldiers; in sum, highly recommended

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Buffalo Soldiers' is the 'Catch-22' for the Reagan era, with its focus on crime, racism, greed and rampant egotism, all contextualised within the framework of an American army that is fighting itself because there are no external enemies for it to do battle with. Darkly comic with a small kernel of hope hidden deep within its narrative and characterisations this is a very good debut novel from Robert O'Connor. It certainly captures the zeitgeist of both its time and its fictional setting, with some attendant exaggeration of course.

Whilst not as complex as the aforementioned classic from Heller this semi-satirical story is an engaging study of a criminal anti-hero who embodies the 'greed is good' mantra that dominated the American mythos of the Reagan presidency. The protagonist (Specialist Ray Elwood) is not acutely aware of the manipulative and manipulated context of his life, both as a peace time soldier and as a crook. The irony is that he is not entirely lost to his schemes of making drugs and money whilst staying out of the reaches of the militarily 'motherfucked'. Through the catalyst of meeting his Sergeant's daughter and falling in love with her Elwood comes to an understanding of his own humanity and perhaps even his fragility. The Sergeant's daughter, Robyn is like him handicapped, though her impediment is an amputated arm, whereas Elwood is emotionally cut off. They move into each other's orbit and in the process he reconciles his damaged self within her caring for him. How this all ends...well, that is for the reader who picks up 'Buffalo Soldiers' to learn.

O'Connor's prose is profane, at times obscene, scatalogically funny and as might be expected from a book set in the army, replete with military references. The most admirable aspect of O'Connor's writing is that he is able to create a strong and vivid impression of his main characters. Ir is no surprise that 'Buffalo Soldiers' was made into a film as the author has written in a rather visual and/or visceral style. There is little in the way of obtuse or elliptical writing here; O'Connor says what he wants to say in almost every paragraph and on every page.

There is, as noted earlier, a dark bleakness to 'Buffalo Soldiers'. Much of this comes from the inner dialogue of Elwood who is positioned as the narrator. It is interesting to note that O'Connor has Elwood address the reader as 'you', in a way putting whoever is reading the book into the story and making he or she become him. It's impossible not to find some degree of empathy or identification with Elwood because of the his.

Because the novel is so tightly framed around Elwood's experiences and his voice the rest of the novel's characters are for the most part caricatures or impressions. Elwood's commander, Colonel Berman, is a stock standard military idiot who happens to have an officer's rank. His bete noir Sergeant Lee is a gung ho monster with that sinister cruelty that only a fictional NCO could be. Robyn, the Sergeant's daughter and Elwood's lover, is not quite drawn in the depth she could or perhaps should have been. Her sexual desires for Elwood and her small-scale criminality speaks more of boredom and a desire to get back at her dad than any deeper humanity. The rest of the characters in 'Buffalo Soldiers' are a rogues gallery of thugs, the drugged, hookers and crooks. Let it be said O'Connor doesn't allow his reader to find anyone 'good' in this book.

It might be said that 'Buffalo Soldier's has a certain Greek tragedy aspect; Elwood, for all his ingenuity and flexibility is never able to deviate too far from his fate. However, unlike (for example) a prideful warrior such as Agammenon or a prodigal son like Oedipus Elwood is almost totally aware of his place in the corrupt underworld of his existence. Elwood is perhaps just as much the creator of his own tragedy as he is the victim of forces he can't control. He is not a good man gone bad, or a bad man becoming good; he is a rather bad man who stays rather bad in a bad army in a bad place at a bad time.

In conclusion 'Buffalo Soldiers' is an enjoyable read that will appeal to anyone who enjoys dark satires and military novels. There is not much in the way of inventiveness or unique writing that will set it among the pantheon of similar works (again, as per 'Catch 22'). However for anyone who wants a very solid story set in a peace time military, with a striking protagonist, then 'Buffalo Soldiers' is it.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pray that with the release of the film based on this book that more people will discover O'Connor's amazing (and only) novel. Set at an U.S. Army base in Mannheim, Western Germany, in what appears to be the mid-'80s (based on the TV shows mentioned), the story follows Specialist Elwood. A classic antihero, this clerk/personal assistant to the battalion CO knows just what papers to push in order to get things done and build up piles of owed "favors". This comes in very handy since his main concern is to maximize profits from his slice of the camp drug trade.

The base comes instantly alive a place of very real danger-rather like a prison-with its racial separate gangs, drug wars, and general mayhem. As Elwood explains, in the peacetime Army there are two kinds of people: the MFers and the MF'd-and he hustles daily to stay in the first category. He's a great dark character, an amoral piece of total scum who you somehow end up liking and hoping will get straightened out. In that respect he's very much like Monty, in David Benioff's excellent novel The 25th Hour. As the book progresses, there a shift develops inside Elwood and the tension starts to build as he sets up one big final score before getting out of the Army. The fly in the ointment is that Elwood is being very closely watched by Master Sgt. Lee, a veteran of three Vietnam tours and a many with an unerring ability to detect BS.

Awash with dark subject matter (drugs, racial fights, exploitative sex), the book is remarkably funny and hard to put down. O'Connor, a writing professor who apparently never served in the Army, manages to infuse his writing with crackling Army slang and idiom specific to the setting. It's hard to overemphasize just how good the dialogue and wordplay is throughout the book. Throughout the book people are telling stories over other people's conversations, and it's all pulled off with dazzling dexterity. And perhaps the greatest testament to O'Connor's skill is that the ending is not unexpected, and yet is still incredibly powerful.

This novel is a piercing depiction of the underbelly of peacetime Army life and invites instant comparisons to Catch-22, while its somewhat unusual second person narration invokes Bright Lights, Big City. Many will find this depiction of peacetime Army life to be deeply offensive and unpatriotic, but it's hard to know just how far from reality it is. In any event, the reality of it doesn't matter, 'cause the book is less a satire of the Army than a dark portrait of a lost soul. Great stuff which leads one to wonder why O'Connor hasn't published anything else in the last ten years.

[Art Tirrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

NOTHING THIS GOOD, BEFORE OR SINCE

From the cover to the final page, not an iota of color exists within Buffalo Soldiers. Anyone who's lived in an army barrack during peacetime knows the direction race relations within the ranks have taken. O'Connor's chilling story leaves no doubt; the situation is worse than anyone imagined.
Free fall. That's where Spec-4 Ray Elwood is headed, and in his less and less frequent MPC's (moments of perfect clarity) he knows it. The rest of the time, he's taking steps to get his stake and get out before the inevitable collision with the ground. He leads a sordid life, using people, dealing hard drugs on the side, flirting with heroin addiction. Yet there is something in him, some remnant of decency, the idea that he could easily change and turn himself around - and when he meets the daughter of his most dangerous enemy and they begin a relationship, we cross our fingers and hope he makes it through.
Comparisons between Buffalo Soldiers and Joseph Heller's classic World War II novel Catch-22 are inevitable, but there really can be no comparison. O'Connor's standoffish second person narrative attempts to hold you at arm's length, but his passages slash away with such cutting, acidic wit, the story gets in close anyway. Beside the peacetime lowlifes of Buffalo Soldiers, Joseph Heller's characters were mere babes-in-arms. In Catch-22, you never quite had to take things seriously. With O'Connor, it's impossible not to, and thus Buffalo Soldiers is ultimately more meaningful. I never thought I'd say this, but Joseph Heller, who I've long revered, no longer stands alone at the top.
Art Tirrell is the author of the exciting Lake Ontario underwater adventure novel, "The Secret Ever Keeps". http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601...

[Cienpaginasporminuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

La primera y única novela de Robert O'Connor, nos introduce el cinismo humano de una sociedad en miniatura estandarizada por los códigos militares, donde el racismo, la drogadicción y la manipulación emocional juegan un papel primordial en la historia, a la hora de ejemplificar como de frágil es la vida y constante es la muerte.

Nos encontramos en los prósperos años 80, atrás queda la guerra de Corea, los americanos disponen de bases militares repartidas por todo el globo. Te preguntas desde Mannheim porque diablos te alistaste en el ejército y en qué fecha podrás volver a tu país.

Desde sus primeras páginas te conviertes en el soldado Ray Elwood, un tipo con una peculiaridad, posee una posición destacada entre sus compañeros por ser capaz de conseguir lo que sea; desde la futura operación de fimosis que desea tu compañero de litera hasta el caballo que necesitas esnifar para dormir.

Pero todo esto cambiará gracias a la llegada del nuevo sargento y su queridísima hija, que pondrá patas arriba tu tráfico de drogas e influencias.

Sexo, drogas y rockandroll podrían ser las palabras claves para este drama bélico donde experimentarás que incluso en tiempos de paz, el hombre busca sus propias guerras

[Nabila Ayu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert O’Connor’s Buffalo Soldiers is a bracing, darkly comic descent into the moral no-man’s-land of post-Cold War American military life, set against the bleak backdrop of a U.S. Army base in Germany. What distinguishes this novel from its contemporaries isn't just its caustic wit or its unflinching portrayal of institutional rot, but its bold narrative voice—told, strikingly, in the second person.

The choice to frame the story in the second person is both jarring and exhilarating. “You” are Ray Elwood, a cynical, drug-dealing supply specialist who drifts through army life with a mixture of opportunism and existential detachment. The use of "you" draws the reader into complicity with Elwood's moral ambiguity, forcing an intimacy that’s rarely achieved in traditional first- or third-person narratives. Rather than alienating the reader, as second-person narration often risks, it creates a strange, immersive pull—a sense that you're not simply watching Elwood’s descent, but participating in it.

It’s remarkable, really, how few novels have dared to use this perspective with such success. O’Connor wields it not as a gimmick but as a central structural and psychological device. The voice becomes a kind of indictment, a mirror held up to the reader’s face, implicating them in the absurdities and cruelties of military bureaucracy and the casual nihilism of peacetime soldiering.

Beyond its narrative mechanics, Buffalo Soldiers is grimly funny and unsettlingly prescient. O'Connor captures a peculiar kind of institutional madness—where soldiers without a war turn their energy toward drugs, petty schemes, and internecine power struggles. The tone is frequently sardonic, yet beneath the black humor lies a real pathos. Elwood is no hero, but neither is he entirely unsympathetic; he's a byproduct of a system that thrives on detachment and dysfunction.

The 2001 film adaptation, while solid in its own right, lacked the full bite of O’Connor’s prose and the unique intimacy of the book’s perspective. It softened the novel’s raw edges in favor of a more conventional satire, missing some of the unsettling tonal complexity that makes the novel so memorable.

In the end, Buffalo Soldiers stands out not just for what it says about the military, but for how it says it. O’Connor’s audacious use of second person remains a masterstroke, one that feels both underutilized and ahead of its time. It's a novel that deserves more attention than it gets—both for its literary daring and for its unsparing vision of a world where discipline and decay march hand in hand.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is not about the all-black cavalry and infantry regiments in place after the US civil war. it’s a black comedy/satire about life in the US military abroad. i am finding it difficult to care.

it’s not the use of second person nor all the drug references and bullshitting going on. i think other people might be amused simply on the merits of the illicit goings on and witty banter between characters and within “your” head. i’ve read books that do this in a much more biting manner. i’ve read Palahniuk. i’ve also read Catch-22.

it’s not a bad book. it’s not a badly written book. the characters are not two-dimensional. my mind simply does not find this subject matter interesting nor the prose compelling enough to draw me along satisfactorily. however, i am not yet 100 pages in so i will bide my time patiently.

it ends up being an anti-war, anti-military tale. it reads like a prison movie. the dark humor attributed to this by those who have previously read this might be mistaken. i suppose it’s blackly funny as a painful tongue-in-cheek skewering of drug culture and idle hands during the Cold War. to me, however, it always seemed hypothetical due to the second person prose but just a little aggressive for the same reason. like trying to shove something between someone’s teeth for their own good. it wasn’t pleasant. it was real though. it was gritty. it has detailed insight into the cooking of heroin. i personally found it dull.

[Miguel Poveda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ser soldado en tiempos de paz no es sencillo, y menos si eres un escurridizo especialista en chanchullos como Elwood. En esta novela, Robert O'Connor relata el devenir de tan singular caradura en el mundo del trapicheo de drogas dentro del ejército americano tras la Guerra de Vietnam, concretamente en Manheim (donde el famoso torneo internacional de baloncesto juvenil). La descripción del mundillo y de la soldadesca es divertida y curiosa, pero la trama es un poco previsible y anodina, así que la historia va perdiendo punch según van pasando las páginas y te acercas al final. No está mal, pero no es un gran libro.

[Sammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was intense from start to finish. The characters were mostly interesting but a few felt very similar and that made it hard to differentiate between them and to care or not care about one character because of another. The ending was superb and the main character's development was brilliant.

Worth reading if you're looking for a wartime drama/action piece. Not worth reading if vulgarity is something you dislike.

[Ignacio Romeo Gómez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un trainspotting a la americana, y en el ejército. Sarcasmo, humos negro y risas aseguradas en un libro muy bestia. Abstenerse almas sensibles. Tremendo.

[Bill Monaco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hated his life style and the kind of person he was, but this book was amazing and a learning experience in how to write.

[Martín Barrena]

Un libro con los subidones y bajones de un colocon (creo, no me drogo).

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

the ending is kinda garbage and the "bad guys" all talk like 60's james bond villains, but the writing is very good

[Jd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catch22 satire with some Apocalypse Now darkness

[Will Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

War is hell and also not war is hell if you’re in the military I guess lmao. Incredibly nihilistic book but a lot of fun

[Mary Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark and one of my all time favorite reads ...

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book starts off plesantly brisk, combining the excitement of a hard boiled detective novel with the contemporary pop philosophies of Fight Club. The characters are sympathetic sociopaths. The setting is a military base, but the pervasiveness of drugs and violence could be from any group living situation.

Sadly, the book starts to drag halfway. Rather than escalating the gonzo craziness like a Harry Crews novel would do, O'Connor adds some side plots - a tank joy ride, a pompous Colonel's party - that don't go anywhere. The back cover compares "Buffalo Soldiers" to "Catch-22", but that novel is about the ridiculousness of life during wartime and this is mostly about hustling heroin. Unforgivingly, Buffalo Soldiers ends with near moralizing; that may be OK for Iceberg Slim, but O'Connor's characters don't have enough soul.

The beginning of this book is high energy pulp that makes this a worthy summertime read.

[Paula Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I can't identify with all the drug running and gangster violence, I do appreciate how well O'Connor captured the ludicrous life of soldiers in peacetime, always looking for a way to make it feel real.
Second person, gimicky and interesting but intellectually dishonest. It's like listening to someone lie to himself all the while marveling at how deep the deceipt goes.
Perhaps second person narrative only works with subversive characters, the kind of people who would put their lies on someone else, refusing to own their guilt, their motivations, their truth. A short story with second person can be cool. A whole novel? Now that's a trap.

[Rebekkila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I haven't read any books that are told from the second person, so this was a new experience. The story is mainly the reactions of the peripheral characters to the chaos that Elwood has created in his own personal life. The characters are shallow and the sad thing about it is as you read you know that they are real. It makes you wonder about where the author drew his inspiration. I highly recommend this book and can't wait to rent the movie.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually much better than it appears and I think that this paradox can only be explained by that bloody second person perspective. The mind revolts when reading it but given a chance it is a truly good book that in parts shows true brilliance. In other parts of course, 2nd p p and those dream sequences spring to mind, it feels like it is trying to be something it isn't which is very striking when the rest of the work feels so truthful.
Did I mention it is written in the second person?

[Gusmenary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This made me want to be in the army less than all vietnam movies combined.

Okay, essentially marine stationed on an US army base in Germany. Sells drugs, fucks daughter of his CO, makes a ton of meth, CO kills him.

The author may have done too good a job conveying how boring things are there because I actually started to become bored with his descriptions of how boring things were. Boring.

[Andy Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the film so read the book. The book is a bit different being told from a second person perspective and the film wasn't a straight re-telling of the book. It's a good story capturing life of the soldiers, the comedy, black humour and absurdity. Well worth reading.

[Malcolm Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is about corrupt US Army guys stationed in Germany during the cold war. There's an intense immediate feeling because of the author's unique point of view. There is a dark nihilistic savagery between the characters but the author has you laughing out loud.

[Tiffany Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

good stuff

[melissa]

Justin Klugh wrote a 2 Sentence Review on nonpretentious

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, quite different from the film, which I also enjoyed.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not share

[Richard Turton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Satire in a similar vein as Catch-22 and Dr. Strangelove. Set on a US Army base in Germany. Uncommonly, written in the 2nd person!