Don't Go Near the Water (book)

Don't Go Near the Water

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	William Brinkley
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Comedy
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1956
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	373 pp

Don't Go Near the Water is a 1956 novel by William Brinkley. The book parodies aspects of the wartime United States Navy, particularly Navy public relations, in which Brinkley served, propaganda, war correspondents, civilian contempt for the regular military, and Naval Intelligence.

"In peacetime Lieutenant Commander Clinton T. Nash had been in charge of a Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Beane office in the Midwest. Not long after Pearl Harbor he had been commissioned directly from his brokerage office without the corrupting effect of any intervening naval training."

Don't Go Near the Water is a comedic war novel, about United States Navy public relations officers during World War II.

The story is set in 1945, from just after the invasion of Iwo Jima to the end of the war. The officers depicted are in the Public Relations (PR) section of "ComFleets", the fictional advanced headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, on the fictional island of Tulura (a stand-in for Guam).

Don't Go Near the Water is an episodic novel broken into ten chapters, each telling a story about the various PR officers stationed on the island, and six sequentially numbered interludes, entitled "Melora", which chronicle the romance between Ensign Max Siegel of the PR section and Melora Alba, daughter of the island's leading citizen."

The PR section is headed by Lieutenant Commander Clinton T. Nash, a pompous stock broker given to jargon and catchphrases. Entirely bald, he is referred to as "Marblehead" by his subordinates. Nash aspires to be nautical ("a sea-going officer"), but cannot master the use of a sextant. (This is a running gag, repeated throughout the book.) Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs is coming for a publicity visit. Lieutenant JG Ross Pendleton, an egotistic radio producer, suggests that Burroughs could visit the natives on adjacent Gug-Gug island. This should produce many opportunities for newsworthy photographs and film featuring the Navy. But the natives wear ordinary clothes, and refuse to dress in loincloths. Nash sends Ensign Siegel to assist Pendleton. Siegel is the ace Sightseeing Officer among the Correspondent's Aides, known for his fulsome if tongue-in-cheek treatment of VIPs. A big, homely man, Siegel is a veteran of combat at sea, and also a graduate of Harvard University. He has made friends with the Tuluran natives, and has even learned their language. In a marathon drinking session, Siegel gets the Gug-Gug islanders to cooperate, but Pendleton has to provide the loincloths. Burroughs' visit is filmed, as planned, but the film is never used by the Navy - much to Siegel's relief, as the natives are recorded discussing (very frankly) the fit of the new loincloths on their nether regions.