The Immaculate Invasion

William McGowan

Written as a Graham Greene-like travelogue, The Immaculate Invasion gives a ground-eye view of soldiering in the new age of what the military calls 'Operations Other Than War'...[Shacochis] captures the textures of Haitian life and the arc of its many moods.
— Wall Street Journal

Amy Wilentz

...Shacochis proves that he is a writer of rare grace and intuition....[H]is goal is not to be objective. His goal is to tell the truthas best he can....The issue the book raises most successfully is...what role can the United States Army play in the post-Vietnam war...era if its greatest concern in any operation is the safety of its own personnel? —The New York Times Book Review

David Rieff

One of the many admirable things about Mr. Shacochis' book is the way he is able to move, effortlessly it seems, from the human and operational details of the 18 months he spent with the Special Forces in the country to the larger considerations of U.S. policy and of the nature of the new role that politicians have been increasingly assigning the military. For readers with little interest in Haiti's tribulations, the latter may actually be the most interesting part of the book.
— New York Observer

Charles Jaco

It takes a writer as talented as Bob Shacochis to make sense not only of Haiti, but of the role overworked and sometimes befuddled U.S. troops are being asked to take these days.
— USA Today

Publishers Weekly

When an 11th-hour diplomatic initiative in September 1994 transformed a planned U.S. military invasion of Haiti into a peacekeeping mission to restore Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, Shacochis, an NBA-winning fiction writer, was waiting on the sidelines. Shacochis had first visited Haiti in 1986 in the heyday of the uprising that sent dictator Baby Doc Duvalier into exile, a trip that left him fascinated with the helter-skelter history of the region. Taking an assignment from Harper's, Shacochis returned to Haiti in the wake of the U.S. occupation, traversing the country with a circle of war-hardened reporters before finally pitching his tent with a detachment of special forces commandos in Limbe, a sprawling, isolated mountain district termed "the unfriendliest town in Haiti." There, Shacochis observes at eye-level the vagaries of "Operations Other than War," the sort of open-ended relief work that has defined American military intervention abroad since Vietnam, in which, in his words, "soldiers weren't obsolete, only victory." A country engulfed in an unending nightmare of government atrocities, revolt and grinding poverty, Haiti proves especially resistant to the best intentions of the soldiers Shacochis meets and befriends. Interweaving dispatches from the streets of Haiti and interviews with commanding officers, Shacochis assails those in the military who failed to grasp the moral complexities of Haitian politics, singling out for particular scorn Colonel Mark Boyatt, whom he terms "the Elvis of Operation Uphold Democracy," and who allegedly characterized the FRAPH, a Haitian terrorist organization, as "the loyal opposition." Favoring a gonzo, visceral style clotted with regional patois and military jargon, over the graceful lucidity of a correspondent like Philip Gourevitch, Shacochis presents a narrative that at times resembles a hair-raising, humvee ride through the jungle. But what emerges, ultimately, is a potent chronicle of both a Caribbean nation and a U.S. military machine in profound transition.

Library Journal

With the flair of a novelist (see his Swimming in the Volcano), Shacochis offers a firsthand account of the 1994 liberation of Haiti, when a U.S. military juggernaut at last returned Aristide to power. The book travels through a background of echoes: of voodou rhythms and 18th-century slave rebellions, the Duvaliers, CIA operatives, and the writings of Graham Greene. A masterpiece of high journalism. (LJ 1/99) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Amy Wilentz

...Shacochis proves that he is a writer of rare grace and intuition....[H]is goal is not to be objective. His goal is to tell the truth, as best he can....The issue the book raises most successfully is...what role can the United States Army play in the post-Vietnam war...era if its greatest concern in any operation is the safety of its own personnel?
— The New York Times Book Review

Tony Gibbs

When, in 1994, the United States government decided to reinstall Haiti's democratically elected Aristide government (ejected by a coven of thugs and generals), writer Bob Shacochis arrived to cover the American military operation. He spent 18 months on the island, much of the time with U.S. Special Forces troops in the field, and his experiences are the basis of his remarkable new book, The Immaculate Invasion a highly personal, eminently readable account of the events - and what underlay them. It was Shacochis's second trip to Haiti. In 1986, after his Easy in the Islands, a short-story collection about the Caribbean, had received a National Book Award, he got a magazine assignment to cover Haiti, which was then in the midst of dechoukaj, the popular uprooting of the Duvalier dictatorship. Like so many new beginnings in Haitian history, dechoukaj soon evolved into bloody chaos and yet another dictatorial regime, but by that time Shacochis was hooked on the place and its people.
"I'd always wanted to go," Shacochis told Islands recently. "I'd heard stories about Haiti all through the Caribbean, and met refugees" - he paused, searching for the right words - "people of absolute sweetness, tender spirits determined to make a better life for themselves. How could such wonderful people come from a place like that?
"I still don't know why," he said, "but the value system of the oppressed is the strongest - their attitude toward the family, the way they treat others."
As memorable as the Haitians, though in a very different way, were the American troops Shacochis observed and wrote about: "Until I met them," he recalls, "I was guilty of the usual attitude - not much respect. But for the most part I was impressed by how much they cared about doing something for the people."
Unlike most reporters, who use (or misuse) sources and then leave them behind, Shacochis was still among the troops he'd interviewed when his first stories appeared. Even after the soldiers knew that what they told Shacochis would affect their careers, "they were always forthcoming."
Several of the Special Forces noncoms had served in similar "humanitarian" operations, notably El Salvador and Somalia, and Shacochis observes that they were less than optimistic about quick fixes: "Almost every U.S. soldier understood it was going to take generations" to make Haitian society functional, but they also knew that "the more resources we gave the people, the faster improvement would come."
Unfortunately, Shacochis added, the experts in Washington had the same reading of the situation - that a real solution would take years - and that opinion was further skewed by inside-the-Beltway cynicism. Their attitude? "It will take forever, so why bother?"
Although the invasion itself was a walkover, the hoped-for rejuvenation of Haitian politics hasn't happened.
"Now there's a complete political stalement," Shacochis observed. "No prime minister, no effective parliament, and some of Aristide's closest confidants feel totally betrayed; there's a Caribbean expression that seems to describe it - they're acting like a bunch of crabs in a barrel.
"You can read the situation in either of two ways," he continued: "First, what's happening now is inevitable in a nation that's always had one-party rule, but after the current splintering, viable political parties will emerge. Or," he added reluctantly, "you can say that the Haitians are condemned by their history never to have a leader who can raise them up."
Even so, Shacochis feels Americans, especially African-Americans, should see Haiti for themselves.
"You'll be appalled and hate it, or it'll get under your skin and stay there. Either way, it's a great experience. Go to Port-au-Prince and stay at the Oloffson - the hotel that cartoonist Charles Addams used as a model for his mansions. See the Citadelle at Cap-Haitien: It's an unimaginable construction, given when it was built and the people who built it. And Henri Christophe's palace is like something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel."
—Islands Magazine

Kirkus Reviews

A brilliant account of the 1994 U.S. invasion and occupation of Haiti. In 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the first democratically elected president of Haiti. No sooner had he taken office when he was overthrown by a gang of murderous thugs known by the acronym FRAPH, and Aristide went into exile in the U.S. In 1994, however, the U.S. launched "Operation Uphold Democracy," an invasion of Haiti whose purpose was to restore democracy there. Invasion is not quite the right word, as at the last minute the head thugs of FRAPH decided to let U.S. forces peacefully occupy the country. In vivid detail and stunning prose, award-winning novelist Shacochis (Swimming in the Volcano) tells the story of this occupation. It's a story of confusion, frustration, and, above all, unremitting violence. Shacochis centers his report on a team of Special Forces commandos with whom he lived for 18 months.

Once on shore they have no idea what they are supposed to do; no one else does either. Generals and State Department officials squabble. For some, Aristide is a little too radical, a little too concerned for the poor. One day FRAPH is the "bad guy" to be rounded up and disarmed, the next day it's the "loyal opposition," a counterweight to Aristide. One day the US forces are there to rebuild Haitian society, the next they are merely keeping minimal order. All the while the violence that has been endemic to Haiti for generations continues. A jail is found in which prisoners stand in six inches of their own feces. The poor begin to exact a terrible, and predictable, vengeance. And nobody known just what the U.S. forces are supposed to do, although Aristide is in fact eventually restored to power.Shacochis's narrative and character development weave together a stunning comedy of terrors. When reading this, one wants to laugh, cry, and take a shower all at the same time.