Who Shot the Water Buffalo?: A Novel

By Ken Babbs

Ken Babbs was the last member of the legendary Stanford writing class led by Wallace Stegner to publish a novel, and the wait was worth it. Lieutenants Tom Huckelbee ("leathery as any Texican come crawling out of the sage") and Mike Cochran ("loquacious son of an Ohio gangster") make an unlikely pair of of?cers training to be helicopter pilots in Vietnam. Their only aim is to get through this disorienting war without losing their minds. This is a bullet-straight story, a hallucinatory journey with a fearlessly unconventional voice. Babbs brilliantly portrays the world through the eyes of a young man discovering what it means to be beholden to another.

This novel, acclaimed as "a cross between Joseph Heller and Hunter S. Thompson" (Booklist), is a riveting and very funny exploration of war and friendship, and a book not to be missed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Apr 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781590208885

Ken Babbs

Ken Babbs, Ohio-bred and Ohio-born, is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a member of two NCAA tournament basketball teams. He was turned on to writing at Miami by Walter Havighurst, a fine scholar and scribe. He attended graduate school at Stanford University, where he met Ken Kesey, Wendell Berry and other luminaries in Wallace Stegner’s writing class. Five years in the Marine Corps followed, serving as a helicopter pilot, with his final tour of duty in Vietnam. He got off the chopper and onto the bus, Further, for the famous trip to Madhattan in 1964, chronicled in print by Tom Wolfe and filmed and taped by the Merry Pranksters. He shared forty-three years of collaboration and shenanigans with Kesey—doing shows, speaking engagements and musical catastrophes—plus writing books, magazine articles, and co-editing six issues of Spit in the Ocean. Babbs co-wrote Last Go Round with Kesey, and went on to publish a novel based on his experiences in Vietnam, Who Shot the Water Buffalo? Married to a retired high school English teacher, he lives on a six-acre farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.

Reviews for Who Shot the Water Buffalo?

[nellgwyn_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a collection of anecdotes with a shared cast of characters, I enjoyed it. As a novel, the format didn't quite work for me, and the end felt rather abrupt and lacked a satisfactory denouement. But as an illustration of the day-to-day life of Marine helicopter pilots in the Vietnam War, it was a very good read.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Who Shot the Water Buffalo? Is about two young men who train together to be helicopter pilots. They live together, play together, rival each other over just about anything from spelling to women, and ultimately find themselves in Vietnam together . The book follows their adventures during their two year deployment (1960-62). The timing is interesting as this period is before Americans were sent there to fight, at this time, they were considered “advisors”.The two main characters are Huckelbee , a 5’9” wiry Texan, and from Ohio, Cochran, a 6’2” muscle man who is called Gorilla. This is not a linear story, and it took me some time to adjust to his choppy, episodic writing style. The author relates his stories in a series of stand-alone chapters, each a separate short story that opens with an obviously wounded and in pain Huckelbee talking to a doctor. The reader only finds out in the last chapter how he came to be wounded. Each story tells of bizarre events that can be both entertaining or shocking, sometime both. These guys are flying in and out of danger on a constant basis, delivering ARVN troops and supplies. When they are not flying we are treated to a series of beer-bashes, whore hunting missions and wild R & R breaks. It is when the story is of their actual missions that the reader learns of the white knuckle flying conditions, difficult landing zones, helicopter crashes and daring escapes from the Viet Cong.Who Shot the Water Buffalo felt like I was on the inside of a soldier’s mind. Disjointed, abrupt, at times both rambling and wildly out of control, it shows how soldiers could be driven to alcohol and drugs to help cope with the difficult conditions they found there. While I would suggest there are novels that tell a better story by the likes of Tim O’Brien and Karl Marlantes, Who Shot the Water Buffalo certainly gives an authentic feeling of “being there“.