title: Gumpisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump
author:  Winston Groom 
description: What happens when a literary writer produces a book that becomes a mass-market smash as a movie, and then feels compelled to write a sequel? In this case, he writes a picaresque saga that will dismay those who know Groom is capable of better stuff. This book opens on a down-and-out, disillusioned Gump, his "srimp" business "ruint" and his mama dead. Soon Jenny, his lifelong love, dies too-only to reappear as an advice-giving spirit when Gump needs her most. Gump begins a search for a job with which to support little Forrest, who is seven when the book begins (though Gump says 10 years have passed) and already savvier than his "idiot" father. Gump embarks on a series of farcical adventures that always culminate either with him fleeing an angry mob or "thowed" in jail. Along the way, he tries to find a new formula to save the "CokeCola" company; works for a pig farmer; sells bogus encyclopedias; and gets involved with Oliver North, who uses him in the arms-for-hostage negotiations with Iran. He meets a dotty President Reagan, a venal Rev. Jim Bakker and a financier named Ivan Bozosky. Gump encounters Tom Hanks and others at Elaine's restaurant; provokes the destruction of the Berlin Wall; captures Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, only to be directed by General "Scheisskopf" to let him loose. Coincidences and pratfalls occur at a dizzying rate. Constantly "shoveling shit" as fast as he can, Gump learns "don't never let nobody make a movie of your life's story." He gets that one right. Film rights to Paramount; audio rights to Simon &amp; Schuster audio; British, translation, first serial rights: Raines and Raines; author tour. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Winston Groom’s novel Forrest Gump, the basis for the smash motion picture
  starring Tom Hanks, has won him resounding national acclaim. Now Pocket Books
  is proud to bring Winston Groom’s extraordinary first novel back into print.
  
  Summer, 1966: A few months earlier, First Lieutenant Billy Kahn was studying
  geology on an ROTC scholarship; now he is the Executive Officer of Bravo
  Company, responsible for leading over one hundred young men into combat. But
  his problems are not limited to the Vietcong. There’s Colonel Jason Patch, his
  battalion commander, a cold and callous man willing to sacrifice troops for
  strategic position; Lt. Brill, an unbalanced sadist whose bizarre behavior
  spells trouble for the whole company; and Kahn’s own struggles with the death
  all around him, his sense of duty, and the American mission in Vietnam. And
  just when Kahn wins a Silver Star, he is drawn into an impassable moral
  quagmire that could mean his downfall—or his redemption.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  AFT