Fully Armed: The Story of Jimmy Don Polk - Hardcover

Levin, Bob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1880909383 ISBN 13: 9781880909386

Publisher: Baskerville Pub, 1995

About this title

From Booklist

Attorney Levin (The Best Ride to New York, 1978) unravels this marginally fictionalized account of Jimmy Polk, an African American veteran of the Vietnam War who was homeless, wheelchair-bound, and a panhandler when Levin met him. Levin gives Polk a job and soon finds himself taken with Polk's irrepressible personality. In his own words, Polk tells of his difficult life: when just 16, Polk kills the man who raped his sister, opts for Vietnam instead of prison, and is assigned to a unit that massacres civilians. Crippled in a firefight, Polk returns to the States with a drug addiction and emotional problems that eventually land him on the streets. After Polk disappears, Levin becomes unsure of just how much of Polk's story is true and begins an investigation into the muddled facts. Polk returns and gives another account of his life, disappearing again shortly thereafter. Three years later he resurfaces born-again--a reformed drug addict, active in AA, working, and living in an apartment filled with books. A fascinating exploration of truth, friendship, and survival. Brian McCombie

From Library Journal

California attorney Levin (The Best Ride to New York, LJ 8/78) happens to encounter and befriend a black, homeless panhandler in a wheelchair near his Berkeley law office. The panhandler claims to be a Vietnam vet and proceeds to describe his experiences in combat with an elite unit that resembles the Special Forces; in Vietnam he also acquired a drug and alcohol addiction. Levin is fascinated by Jimmy's colorful and often grotesque narrative, which he dutifully records in the first half of the book. But some of the details of Jimmy's descriptions seem embellished. Suspicious, Levin procures Jimmy's military records and discovers that he was never in Vietnam. Disappointed but not bitter, Levin remains friends with Jimmy despite the latter's immense fabrication of lies. Levin demonstrates a patience and compassion that may not be shared by all readers of this sad "work of biographical fiction"?meaning it's mostly true. Recommended for its vivid, gritty prose to public libraries.?Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Baskerville Pub
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1880909383
• ISBN 13: 9781880909386
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 244