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I was a huge fan of Ben Fountain's short story collection Brief Encounters With Che Guevara, so I was eagerly anticipating his first novel. The novel focuses on one of the author's favorite themes - innocents serving as the pawns for power players in...more
I was a huge fan of Ben Fountain's short story collection Brief Encounters With Che Guevara, so I was eagerly anticipating his first novel. The novel focuses on one of the author's favorite themes - innocents serving as the pawns for power players in the world of politics. Here the focus in on Billy Lynn, a 19-year-old soldier who, along with his fellow soldiers in the Bravo squadron, become heroes in the Iraq War. Because their battle with Iraqi insurgents was captured on film and shown repeatedly on Fox TV, they become celebrities for people trying to justify a questionable war. They come home to the United States for a two-week Victory Tour, and the novel occurs entirely on the final day of the tour when they are the showcased guests at a Dallas Cowboys football game against the Chicago Bears. Fountain is an immensely gifted writer. The writing on every page is dazzling, and his gift at description, character building and lyricism are so jaw-droppingly good I found myself highlighting section after section until I stopped because I would have highlighted the whole book.
My quibbles with the book are that from the outset you don't have a clear sense of some big thing that Billy wants, and there's no clear adversary preventing him from getting it - and without those definite desires and obstacles to them, it's not the kind of book you can't wait to get back to, as you're reading, to see if the character will be able to find a way to reach his goals. The Bravo soldiers will have to go back to the war, and while Billy's sister begs him not to and tries to introduce him to people who could spirit him away, it isn't until the end of the book that Billy starts to give that option any serious consideration. For much of the book he seems to accept his return as a given.
The one dream the Bravo soliders collectively have is to make a lot of money from a movie made about their exploits because a Hollywood producer has bought the rights to their lives. That producer, Albert, tags along throughout their day at the football game, but at least through the early part of the book he becomes a tad obnoxious and repetitive as he keeps squawking into his cell phone with all the pompous, over-the-top insincerity masked as brutal honesty that has been portrayed so many times before in books, movies and TV shows like Entourage. The one funny bit here is that the movie deal starts to get some traction when Hillary Swank becomes interested in the story, on the condition that Billy's character become a female hero for the film, but the references to Swank's interest get so repetitive they do start to border on the monotonous. The only real adversary here - and a very thin one - is Norm Ogelsby, the team owner, who's an imitation of the real egomaniac, Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys. But the real tension with him doesn't come until the end of the book when he becomes interested in starting a film company to make the movie himself and becomes a hard-nosed negotiator with Albert and the soldiers. Of course, the main adversary here, would be the Bush Administration for intiating a war on the false pretense of getting rid of Saddam's WMDs, but those adversaries loom far in the background here.
The other want Billy has is a relationship with one of the Cowboy cheerleaders, who makes out with him in a hidden corner during a photo shoot with the soldiers. Billy is a virgin, and his instant attraction to an immature cheerleader, is nothing more than the most obvious dreamy, boyhood urge. What the novel does very well is show what little interest people have in actually getting to know the soldiers, while they're fawning all over them, telling them they are heroes and expressing gratitude for their service. It's interesting that the soldiers are trying to get a movie made about themselves because for the hordes of people they meet - the powerful, the famous, and the everyday folk - what the soldiers mostly serve as is a blank screen upon which people can project all their own feelings about the war and how the United States should be exacting revenge in the aftermath of 9/11. One of the best and funniest scenes occurs in a pre-game exchange with the Cowboys' secondary. When the soldiers visit the locker room, most of the players stare off blankly, blocking out the routine interruptions in their pre-game rituals. But the defensive backs draw Billy in, eager for details of what guns Billy uses and taking sadistic pleasure in hearing gory details of his battles, as they entertain fantasies of joining up with the soldiers for a two-week tour in which they could wreak some havoc without having to leave their high-paying jobs permanently.
The soldiers know they're being used by the government as a propaganda machine, and they're just interested in making some money off the entire P.R. operation. The way that Fountain so effectively portrays the sarcastic, ball-busting, but I've got your back camaraderie of the soldiers is one of the highlights of the book. I do wish we'd had a clearer description of the battle that made the soldiers famous, but a description of what happened is delayed in the early portion of the book, and when it comes later, it's often in bits and pieces. But there is a very powerful description of the one fatality of that fight dying in Billy's arms and the impact that has on Billy's thought patterns.
I feel a little silly offering so many critiques of a book that's full of so many brilliant sentences, descriptions and observations. Just one section -- the prolonged description of the tour the soldiers get of the equipment room by the equipment handler - could serve as a showcase of how prodigiously talented Fountain is. The catalogue of the endless variety of gear the team requires is so eye-opening and so humorously told, you can't believe that a writer could make that subject so fascinating.
I just wish I could have along the way rooted along with Billy for something bigger than getting money from a smarmy movie producer or a sexual romp with a drop-dread gorgeous cheerleader. And while the prospect of death hangs over Billy constantly as he contemplates returning to Iraq, the brutality of that war only comes through in a few brief passages, such as the death scene noted above and another in which Billy recalls the horror of what happens to the human body when it's shot at in close range with a high-powered weapon. In conclusion, I suppose, it was a book I did enjoy and I still look forward to Fountain's next work, but I think he fell short of making this a classic on the level of Catch 22, to which I know it has been compared.(If Billy had an urge as compelling as Yossarian's desire to avoid another combat mission, and as worthy an adversary as the crazy bureaucracy that blocked Y from his goal, this book might have had the same impact for me as that classic.) Another current novel in this vein of comic/satirical (with touches of tragedy) looks at the plight of Iraqi soldiers is Last One In by Nicholas Kulish, which didn't get the attention it deserved. It too offers a great look at the war from the perspective of the foot soldiers.(less)
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I thoroughly enjoyed Moffett’s first collection, Permanent Visitors, and was happy to hear word of this second one. Moffett is a master of the quirky, off -beat and often very humorous story. Even in his oddest stories, like “The Big Finish” here, wi...more
I thoroughly enjoyed Moffett’s first collection, Permanent Visitors, and was happy to hear word of this second one. Moffett is a master of the quirky, off -beat and often very humorous story. Even in his oddest stories, like “The Big Finish” here, with its talking birds, Moffett still manages to be touchingly poignant and invoke great sympathy in the reader for his characters.
The 9 stories in the collection are:
1. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events – 34 pp – A story that thoroughly deserved its place in the Best American Short Stories of 2010 collection. A writer has to deal with the enraging fact this his father, in retirement starts to dabble with writing and ends up publishing some very powerful stories in literary journals. The way the story portrays the son’s jealousy and annoyance over this is marvelous. But this turn of events, particularly the stories the father is publishing, forces the son to reexamine memories of his mother’s death and reconsider his assumption that his mother’s passing had little effect on the father.
2. Buzzers – 20 pp – A young man goes to Europe to study architecture just as he learns his ill father has died.
3. In the Pines – 27 pp – A lonely widow lives in a retirement home that looks out a on a Civil War battlefield. Because she can’t find any suitable male companionship, she begins to imagine conversations with a solider from the war.
4. First Marriage – 26 pp – A newly married couple transporting a man’s car to Florida get delayed while their cars get deodorized by mechanics because a snake had crawled into and died.
5. Border to Border- 25 pp – An Estonian immigrant who works at an Epcot Center-like amusement park called Small World swallows the crown of his tooth. Without health insurance to pay for new dental work, his taste of freedom in the new world means having to deal with the gross prospect of fishing the crown out when it comes out the other end of him. A gross premise, but a charming portrait of an innocent surrounded by people not as principled as he.
6. Lugo in Normal Time – 22 pp – An alcoholic tries, not very successfully to connect with his ex-wife and teenaged daughter.
7. English Made Easy – 27 pp – A story that blew me away when I first read it in American Short Fiction. A young mother has to deal with the death of her husband, who passed away when she was pregnant. Her days are filled with dealing with a pushy sister-in-law who is excessive in her efforts to keep her brother’s memory alive and a neighbor with Alzheimer’s who almost provides a model for the young widow on how to move past painful memories. Per usual in a Moffett he mixes all this poignant, heartfelt stuff with quirky situations – here a brother-in-law who got into trouble for having sex with a puppet.
8. The Big Finish – 22 pp – A man who does bird shows on a cruise ship has to deal with an amorous boys and a pair of birds who talk to him, mostly letting him know how much they preferred their previous trainer.
9. One Dog Year – 21 pp – A sick and elderly John D. Rockefeller spends his last days overlooking the beach with his manservant and the doctor he’s paying a hefty sum to keep him alive so he can reach his goal of living to 100. He realizes a life spent saving and planning for the future left little opportunity to savor the moment – but now he wants to begin doing that, as a stunt pilot offers to give him a ride in his plane.(less)
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This is an absolutely fabulous collection of stories. In my view, it's the best kind of writing because there aren't any writerly tricks to keep you conscious of the fact that you're watching a writer at work. Here you get so absorbed by the characte...more
This is an absolutely fabulous collection of stories. In my view, it's the best kind of writing because there aren't any writerly tricks to keep you conscious of the fact that you're watching a writer at work. Here you get so absorbed by the characters and the situations they're caught up in that you forget you're reading fiction. Almost all of the characters have romantic complications - marriages that don't quite work, and infidelity is a problem that keeps getting examined from a variety of angles. There are a lot of parental relationships examined, too, particularly ones that left so many scars that the son and parents didn't see each other or speak for years. Many of the characters are Jewish, but most are secular ones and there aren't a lot of heavy religious themes, other than the basic one of how it's possible to believe or not. If you enjoy straightforward, compelling characters, great dialogue, and thought-provoking premises, I think you'll find this collection thoroughly worth your while.
The 7 stories, most of which are set in New York or Massachusetts, are:
1. In the Book of Life - 22 pp -- A great story right out of the chute about a man who begins an affair with the daughter of his boyhood friend and business partner, an entanglement that sets off a host of unexpected discoveries and complications.
2. Winter on the Sawtooth - 18 pp - A father is embarrassed when his son makes his first trip home from college and has to discover the shambles his parents' marriage is in. The husband and wife still share the same house, but the wife has taken on a new lover whom she sleeps with in the same house she shares with her husband. But the son's return could change the entire dynamic.
3. The Moon Landing -- 27 pp -- Two estranged brothers have to come together to clear out their parents' house after they both die within one days of each other. Searching through their clothes, they're reminded of how their childhood was shaped by their parents' constant drinking.
4. Catherine and Henry - 28 pp -- A young woman gets convinced by a cynical older fiend to test her boyfriend's faithfulness by hiring a woman to seduce him. The inevitable happens but because they both love each other the "test" presents unexpected turns for both of them.
5. Our Portion, Our Rock - 29 pp -- A young lawyer, who's not happy with his job, has to deal with a dying father who's crippled with Lou Gehrig's disease and his own foolish attempt to consummate his long-time crush on a law school classmate, who went on to marry his best friend.
6. Visiting - 16 pp -- A divorced father tries to make a connection with his 16-year-old son by driving him, on one of the rare weekends he spends with him, from Manhattan to the home of his dying father in Rhode Island. It's a compelling portrait of the "sandwich" generation, estranged from his sarcastic child and his cruel father. But in the end, there's a compelling look at how those generational gaps and estrangements can be bridged, if only in a minor way.
7. Beyond Any Blessing - 34 pp -- A grandson goes back to Boston to find out why his grandfather, a 90-year-old rabbi, has been fired by his temple board and evicted from his home. The grandson, Daniel, isn't much help in rectifying the situation, but the trip home gives him an opportunity to revisit his past (his grandfather raised him after his parents were killed in a car accident) and an old flame, for whom he still carries a torch for even though he's married to someone else. The grandfather was in his 70s when he had to take over raising this boy, but it's clear that, while their relationship wasn't always easy, there was a strong bond that the grandson is only now beginning to fully understand and appreciate.(less)
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Norumbega Park tells a terrific story about the four members of the Palumbo family - father, Richie; wife, Stella; son, Jack; and daughter, Joan. At the start of the novel, Richie, an Italian American, stumbles upon a gorgeous old house in the center...more
Norumbega Park tells a terrific story about the four members of the Palumbo family - father, Richie; wife, Stella; son, Jack; and daughter, Joan. At the start of the novel, Richie, an Italian American, stumbles upon a gorgeous old house in the center of a Waspy New England town and decides, striver that he is, that the house is what he needs to capture the American dream. The problem is that the house isn't up for sale. So he befriends the elderly couple who own it and waits for when it will become too much for them. He does get his opportunity when the husband dies, and he manages to convince the couple's adult son that the wife can longer handle the big house on her own. Moving in, Richie is full of hope, believing the house will catapult his family into the kind of success he imagines the previous residents enjoyed. The only problem is that he has two very mixed-up kids. His son, Jack, has no desire to be anything but a high school Lothario. Later, Jack dreams, as his father did, of becoming something more, but it's a great love - the beautiful, remote young Christina - whom he hopes can bring meaning to his life. Richie and Stella's daughter, Joan, is a shy loner who hides out in her room, afraid of the world, and whose only goal is to become a nun. She follows her dream at a tender age before she's done any living. That decision is a great heartbreak to her mother. The novel runs the course of several decades, from when Jack and Joan are children all the way to their midlife crises, when Stella is gone and Richie is borderline senile. Stella becomes most prominent in the middle of the book when we get inside her head as she battles cancer and lets her daughter know she wishes she had been more daring with her life and not retreated to a cloistered abbey. The descriptions of what plays through the mind of someone going through chemo as they assess their lives and their relationships are incredibly powerful. Still, while I really admire Giardina and was very fond of his story collection, Country of Marriage, I almost gave up on this novel in the early sections. There are some creepy scenes - as a boy Jack shows his sister his penis to "educate" her, Richie acts like a stalker as he waits for the elderly couple to turn over the house of his dreams, and one night when Jack is a teenager Stella lingers outside a room and studies her naked son who has fallen asleep on a family room couch after a tryst with his high school girlfriend. But I stayed with it, and was glad I did because the novel really takes off when Jack begins pursuing his great love - the aloof Christina, who works with his father in the pizza parlor Richie had to open as a second occupation to afford the house he overspent on. Joanie's retreat into the abbey is riveting as well. Giardina does a great job portraying what a religious life must feel like. Even though Joan is, at least initially, thoroughly dedicated to her vocation, she tests the boundaries, and on a walk along the borders of the abbey, she meets a young man she's immediately attracted to, and whom she develops a years-long friendship with as she tries to bring him back to the church. Even for a literary novel, there's often very little action and an awful lot of ruminating from the five characters whose point of view the novels shifts between - the four members of the Palumbo family and Jack's girlfriend, then wife, Christina. Sometimes Giardina's prose, especially early on, gets so lyrical I sometimes got lost trying to figure out what the characters were feeling. But these are minor quibbles. The book overall packs a powerful punch about what happens when the great dramas we expect from our lives don't play out and how we cope when the mundane realities of everyday life take over.(less)
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This is an important, brilliantly conceived, though not always pleasant to read, novel. At its center is Pak Jun Do, who withstands all sorts of brutality in the absurdly surreal world of North Korea. He goes from being an orphan, to a kidnapper, to...more
This is an important, brilliantly conceived, though not always pleasant to read, novel. At its center is Pak Jun Do, who withstands all sorts of brutality in the absurdly surreal world of North Korea. He goes from being an orphan, to a kidnapper, to a radio man on a fishing ship to a prisoner, and then finally assumes the identity of a national hero/tae kwondo champion who belongs to Kim Jung Il's inner circle and is the husband of the country's greatest national actress. The tales of how human life is so grotesquely devalued - from kidnapping innocent victims off Japanese soil to performing lobotomies on prisoners with nails over their eyeballs - make for difficult reading. But it remains a triumphant story about how this one character attempts to persevere, while everything he could hold precious, including his own identity, is stolen from him. The descriptions of the places he brings his mind to escape the physical torture or the things he must do to avoid starvation in prison camps, like eating moths, are delivered with brilliant prose. I read an interview with Adam Johnson in which he mentioned an upcoming memoir from someone who lived in a Korean gulag that details brutalities far in excess of any of those here. He also said he had to hold back and not match some of the more outlandish things Kim Jung Il actually did because it would have strained readers' credulity. It is hard to believe that a far more sadistic world than the one Orwell describes in 1984 actually exists somewhere, but this novel, in a magnificently literary way, offers a glimpse into just how cruelly distorted the world of North Korea is.(less)
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