EXCLUSIVE Preview Of ’40 Men And 12 Rifles: Indochina 1954′

This week sees two new releases from Arsenal Pulp Press, and we have exclusive previews to share with you for both. And we start with 40 Men And 12 Rifles: Indochina 1954 by Marcelino Truong (Such a Lovely Little War, Saigon Calling)…

“40 Men and 12 Rifles is set in Indochina in the year leading up to 1954, when the French-held garrison at Dien Bien Phu fell after a four-month battle, leading to the end of the first Indochina war between French forces and Ho Chi Minh’s National-Communist parallel state. Minh (no relation to Ho) is a young man from Hanoi, an aspiring painter who dreams of experiencing la vie de bohème in Paris’s Latin Quarter. To dissuade him from pursuing an artistic life, his father sends him into the countryside to tend to the family’s holdings. He is soon pressed into serving with Ho Chi Minh’s People’s Army, where he becomes a soldier despite repeatedly defying his cadres – ideological Communist commanders with whom he disagrees – becoming both hero and anti-hero in the process.”