*5 Starred Review* Three American soldiers are stranded in a war-blasted desert city in Africa. The heat, the sand, the impenetrable darkness are all exacting a toll. The enemy is everyone and anyone, even your comrades. The mission is vague, preposterous. The people are starving, desperate, and violent, tyrannized by warlords and clan loyalty. Packs of emaciated dogs roam through smoking ruins. All is obscured by haze, dust, and fear. Josh, a good boy from Wichita, Kansas, struggles to stay rational, vigilant, honorable. Santiago, their lieutenant, tells him, "Stop thinking so much." Their situation goes from bad to worse to all-out nightmare as they barely escape the city and set out for the sea. Every word in Eck's first novel is as solid as a stone. Every moment of crisis feels authentic in its terror and tragedy; indeed, Eck served as a soldier in Somalia at age 18. Heir to Hemingway, and damn near as powerful as Cormac McCarthy in The Road (2006), Eck has created a contemporary version of The Red Badge of Courage in this tale of one young man's trial by fire in the pandemonium of war in an age of high-tech weaponry and low-grade morality. Donna Seaman
Product details:
New First Edition
- Publisher ? : ? Milkweed Editions
- (September 28, 2007)
- Language ? : ? English
- Hardcover ? : ? 192 pages
- ISBN-10 ? : ? 1571310576
- ISBN-13 ? : ? 978-1571310576
- Item Weight ? : ? 1.01 pounds
- Dimensions ? : ? 6.38 x 0.8 x 8.59 inches