About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press

ISBN-100226310574

ISBN-139780226310572

eBay Product ID (ePID)2453129

Product Key Features

Book TitleOk, Joe

Number of Pages140 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2003

TopicGeneral, Literary

GenreFiction

AuthorLouis Guilloux

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.1 in

Item Weight11.4 Oz

Item Length0.9 in

Item Width0.6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2002-155968

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal940.548144

Synopsis"OK, Joe!" the American lieutenant calls out to his driver. He hops into his jeep and heads out through French countryside just liberated from the Nazis. With him is the narrator of this novel, Louis, a Frenchman engaged by the American Army as an interpreter. Louis serves a group of American officers charged with bringing GIs to account for crimes--including rape and murder--against French citizens. The friendly banter of the American soldiers and the beautiful Breton landscape stand in contrast to Louis's task and his growing awareness of the moral failings of the Americans sent to liberate France. For not only must Louis translate the accounts of horrific crimes, he comes to realize that the accused men are almost all African American. Based on diaries that the author kept during his service as a translator for the U.S. Army in the aftermath of D-Day, OK, Joe follows Louis and the Americans as they negotiate with witnesses, investigate the crimes, and stage the courts-martial. Guilloux has an uncanny ear for the snappy speech of the GIs and a tenderness for the young, unworldly men with whom he spends his days, and, in evocative vignettes and dialogues, he sketches the complex intersection of hope and disillusionment that prevailed after the war. Although the American presence in France has been romanticized in countless books and movies, OK, Joe offers something exceedingly rare: a penetrating French perspective on post-D-Day GI culture, a chronicle of trenchant racism and lost ideals., "OK, Joe " the American lieutenant calls out to his driver. He hops into his jeep and heads out through French countryside just liberated from the Nazis. With him is the narrator of this novel, Louis, a Frenchman engaged by the American Army as an interpreter. Louis serves a group of American officers charged with bringing GIs to account for crimes--including rape and murder--against French citizens. The friendly banter of the American soldiers and the beautiful Breton landscape stand in contrast to Louis's task and his growing awareness of the moral failings of the Americans sent to liberate France. For not only must Louis translate the accounts of horrific crimes, he comes to realize that the accused men are almost all African American. Based on diaries that the author kept during his service as a translator for the U.S. Army in the aftermath of D-Day, OK, Joe follows Louis and the Americans as they negotiate with witnesses, investigate the crimes, and stage the courts-martial. Guilloux has an uncanny ear for the snappy speech of the GIs and a tenderness for the young, unworldly men with whom he spends his days, and, in evocative vignettes and dialogues, he sketches the complex intersection of hope and disillusionment that prevailed after the war. Although the American presence in France has been romanticized in countless books and movies, OK, Joe offers something exceedingly rare: a penetrating French perspective on post-D-Day GI culture, a chronicle of trenchant racism and lost ideals.

LC Classification NumberPQ2613.U495O513 2003