by Phil Klay
First published 2014
A soldier comes home from Iraq carrying memories of shooting dogs that fed on human remains near Fallujah. He finds himself in suburbia among people who cannot locate on a map the place where three of his platoon died. In another story, a Lance Corporal seeks forgiveness for a killing he never committed, hoping to free his best friend from guilt. A Mortuary Affairs Marine collects the scattered remains of American and Iraqi soldiers alike. A military chaplain watches his faith crack under the weight of a brutal Colonel's actions. A Foreign Service Officer tries to improve Iraqi lives by teaching baseball, a task as absurd as it sounds. These soldiers navigate the grinding mixture of boredom, red tape, brotherhood, and sudden violence that defines military life. Back home, they face isolation, guilt, and a civilian world that cannot understand what they experienced. Each story captures the vast distance between the war zone and home, between survival and return.
Genres: american-fiction, war, military-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, war-trauma
Setting: Fallujah, Iraq
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, war