Mark Dapin is the author of three novels: King of the Cross (2009) which won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction; Spirit House (2011) which I read when it was long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award (and was also shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year and the Royal Society for Literature’s Ondaatje Prize); and now R&R (2015), which I bought last year at the Melbourne Jewish Writers Festival.

Dapin’s Goodreads photo is interesting: Dapin strikes a Tough Guy Pose, he has tatts, and his black sleeveless Tee-shirt features a naked woman though his folded arms obscure part of the design, hinting that this is necessary to get past the Goodreads ‘community standards’. But his facial expression doesn’t fit the Macho Man image: he looks a bit uncomfortable, a little rueful, perhaps not quite certain about this persona he’s portraying, as if he’s dressed up in a costume that doesn’t suit him. This pseudo-laddish photo, it seems to me, captures the pseudo-laddish spirit of R&R, a novel which will antagonise some readers and make others admire it. I couldn’t put it down.

Drawing on his military history The Nasho’s War (2014) Dapin brings alive a sordid story of Vung Tau, the R&R base behind the front line in what the Vietnamese call The American War (to distinguish it from the war of independence against the French). R&R (Rest and Recreation) consists of drinking, prostitution and the occasional concert for the troops, and as the new US MPs (military police) are told when they arrive, they are at the front line of the war against venereal disease […] but what might be called the “back line” of the war against communism. So it is ‘safe’.

‘As you go about your duties,’ he said, ‘remember this: you are the best unit in the best army in the best city in the best war the world has ever known. It is almost unheard of for a soldier to be killed in Vung Tau, and military police here have sustained no casualties whatsoever.

‘This is your war, men; a gift from the gods. Enjoy it, because one day it will be over.

‘But not,’ he added, ‘any time soon.’ (p. 23)

(NB This is a rare example of text that I can quote without having to deal with ‘language’ I don’t use on my ‘family-friendly’ blog).

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/07/rr-by-mark-dapin/ ( )