Overview
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction"Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It's the best thing written so far on what the war did to people's souls." --Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book ReviewSelected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post Book World, Amazon, and more Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains--of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming. Redeployment has become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780143126829
- ISBN-10: 0143126822
- Publisher: Penguin Books
- Publish Date: February 2015
- Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.55 pounds
- Page Count: 304
- Reading Level: Ages 18-UP
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TOP PICK IN BOOK CLUBS
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This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
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Joshua Ferris’ dazzling third novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, is a masterfully crafted work of black humor that will please fans of his acclaimed debut, Then We Came to the End. New York dentist Paul O’Rourke, the novel’s protagonist, is a full-fledged curmudgeon who has forsworn social media. He isn’t out to win any popularity contests with his patients or anyone else, and so the appearance on the Internet of a site dedicated to his practice comes as a true surprise, as do the Twitter and Facebook accounts in his name that follow. Unsettled and angry, Paul sets out to find the party responsible for establishing his unwanted online presence, a quest that brings him into contact with a bizarre religious group. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a book that explores the nature of contemporary relationships, the quest for identity and the complexities of communication. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this hilarious, probing, complex book is sure to spur lively conversation among reading groups.
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TOP PICK IN BOOK CLUBS
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This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.