Winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction · Winner of the John Leonard First Book Prize · Selected 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 friendwill 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 is poised to 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.
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 friendwill 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 is poised to 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.
Rückkehr in Albträume: In seinem Debütband "Wir erschossen auch Hunde" erzählt Phil Klay Geschichten von Soldaten im Einsatz. Man sollte sie lesen, denn dieser Autor weiß, worüber er schreibt.
Von Sandra Kegel
Die drängenden Fragen der Gegenwart scheuen Gegenwartsautoren hierzulande wie Veganer Gerichte mit Fleisch. Vielleicht haben die Romanciers bloß keine Lust, dorthin zu gehen, wo es weh tut, in die Kampfzonen, die Kriegsgebiete, die Krisenherde, von denen es ja nicht wenige gibt. Doch was uns heute politisch und gesellschaftlich umtreibt, findet literarisch kaum Beachtung, sondern wird im Fernsehspiel, gern auch sonntagabends im "Tatort" verhandelt. Begibt sich ein Autor doch einmal auf die Spur der Aktualität - zum Beispiel mit Bundeswehrsoldaten an den Hindukusch -, ist es garantiert ein Journalist, wie im Fall von Linus Reichlin und Dirk Kurbjuweit, die beide Romane über Afghanistan veröffentlicht haben.
"Kriegsbraut" aus der Feder des "Spiegel"-Redakteurs Kurbjuweit erzählt zwar konventionell, aber interessant von der Problematik deutscher Kriegseinsätze und beruht auf akribischen Nachforschungen des Autors, der mehrmals in Kabul war. Sein Kollege Reichlin äußerte anlässlich seines Romans "Das Leuchten in der Ferne" hingegen nonchalant, seinen Stoff allein aus Büchern, Gesprächen und dem Internet gezogen zu haben. Gerade weil es Schriftstellern, anders als Journalisten oder Historikern, weniger um äußere Fakten als um innere Wahrheiten zu tun ist, wünscht man sich hier aber besondere Sorgfalt im Umgang mit der Wirklichkeit. Wie das aussehen könnte, führt jetzt ein junger Amerikaner vor, Phil Klay, der, gerade einunddreißig Jahre alt, mit seinem literarischen Debüt in der englischsprachigen Welt für Furore sorgt.
"Redeployment" - zu Deutsch etwa Neueinsatz oder Umgruppierung - heißt seine Sammlung von zwölf Kurzgeschichten, die, verfasst in einer direkten, schnörkellosen Sprache, von amerikanischen Soldaten vor, während und nach ihrem Einsatz im Irak handelt. Jede Geschichte ist aus der Perspektive eines anderen Erzählers geschildert, und jede Geschichte arbeitet ein anderes Dilemma, einen anderen schwierigen Moment heraus. Ekstase und Ekel, Stolz und Mitleid, Angst und Übermut; was der Krieg mit Menschen anrichtet und welche widersprüchlichen Empfindungen er die schwerbewaffneten Männer durchmachen lässt, ausgesetzt in einem Land, das sie nicht kennen, das sie nicht verstehen und das sie im staatlichen Auftrag zerstören sollen - davon handelt dieses inhaltlich vielgestaltige und moralisch komplexe Debüt.
Der deutsche Titel "Wir erschossen auch Hunde", der den ersten Satz des Buchs zitiert, ist zwar in seiner Drastik auffälliger, verliert aber dafür die Zweideutigkeit des Originals. Denn es geht in diesen Storys längst nicht nur um die Härte des Krieges an sich und die seelische Grausamkeit auf Schlachtfeldern im Allgemeinen. Sondern eben auch, mit grimmigem Humor und bei Gott nicht politisch korrekt abgemildert, um die Umdeutung jener Eindrücke, die auch Soldaten oft nur aus Kriegsfilmen im Kino kennen, sowie um die Wiedereingliederungsversuche der Veteranen im zivilen Leben, mit denkbar grotesken Folgen.
Phil Klay weiß, wovon er spricht. Nach seinem Studium am Ivy-League-College Dartmouth ging der 1983 geborene Autor zu den Marines und diente von 2007 bis 2008 in der irakischen Provinz An-Albar. Sein Buch ist keine autobiographische Fiktion, sondern erarbeitet sich das Denken und Fühlen, den Witz, die Angst und die Abgebrühtheit der Soldaten mit der Präzision eines Scharfschützen. Zugleich ist das Buch auch eine böse Satire auf all jene Bücher, die im Krieg die Begegnung mit der harten, umgeschminkten "Welt-wie-sie-wirklich-ist" außerhalb der Blase Amerikas beschwören.
Geschickt vermeidet Klay die Klischees vom Aufenthalt im Herzen der Finsternis. Derer bedienen sich hier allenfalls noch die Veteranen, um in der Bar eine Frau zu beeindrucken. In Wirklichkeit aber ist alles komplizierter. "Wie viele Vietnam-Veteranen braucht man, um eine Glühbirne reinzudrehen?", zitiert Klay einen Veteranen-Witz. Antwort: "Du kannst dir das nicht vorstellen, du warst nicht dabei."
Gleich in der Eingangsgeschichte, "Truppenverlegung", erkundet der Autor das Innenleben eines Soldaten, der, in Tarnmontur und das Gewehr zwischen den Knien, die Heimreise über Kuweit in einer Linienmaschine antreten muss. Die Bilder getöteter Kinder sind sehr gegenwärtig, als er sich zwischen die aufgeräumten Urlauber in den Sessel fallen lässt. Der innere Film reißt aber auch nicht ab, als er den steifen Empfang am Stützpunkt in Lejeune längst überstanden hat und wieder bei der Familie ist.
Beklemmend ist der Moment, als der Erzähler mit seiner Frau zum Einkaufen nach Wilmington fährt und sich erinnert, wie er das letzte Mal eine Straße in einer Stadt entlanglief. Da beobachtete ein Marine die Dächer gegenüber, ein anderer die Fensterfront im Obergeschoss, und der letzte sicherte nach hinten. Das steckt ihm im Blut, und es macht ihn fast verrückt, dass er jetzt, hier, in Wilmington, keine Krieger um sich hat und keine Waffe zur Hand. "Du erschrickst zehnmal, weil du merkst, dass sie nicht da ist." Stattdessen steht er bei American Eagle Outfitters in der Umkleidekabine und will sie nicht mehr verlassen.
Die posttraumatische Belastungsstörung, die Soldaten aus dem Krieg mitbringen, zeigt sich hier weniger als Störung, sondern eher als gesteigerte Wachheit. Sie sehen und hören anders als früher, jedes kleinste Detail bemerken sie und würden wohl eine Zehn-Cent-Münze in zwanzig Meter Entfernung entdecken. Zugleich haben sie den ganzen Block im Visier - Fähigkeiten, die im Alltag einer amerikanischen Kleinstadt unbrauchbar sind.
Ein verstörter Pastor kommt in den von Hannes Meyer flüssig übersetzten Storys ebenso zu Wort wie ein Jurastudent der NYU, der mit Freunden seine künftigen Chancen auslotet. Bob betrachtet den Irak-Krieg eher existentialistisch: "Wir führten Krieg im Irak, weil wir im Irak Krieg führten." Und die Erzählung "Geld als Waffensystem" handelt vom Zynismus des Systems, das lieber Baseball-Trikots in den Irak liefert als die dringend benötigte Wasserleitung, weil das bessere Bilder bringt. "Wenn Sie hier Erfolg haben wollen, Finger weg von großen, ehrgeizigen Projekten", wird ein Neuankömmling gewarnt. "Wir sind hier im Irak. Bringen Sie Witwen Bienenzucht bei." Das bringt die meisten Punkte.
Ein anderer Marine schildert, wie er zuhause, je nachdem, ob er mit Konservativen redet oder mit Liberalen, den Krieg jeweils kritisiert oder verteidigt. Klay tut keines von beidem, sondern beschreibt in immer neuen Varianten, wie Krieg erfahren wird, ganz konkret in der Uniform - und wie er klingt. Denn so schwer Krieg in Worten zu fassen ist, bringt er doch eine eigene Sprache hervor, für die Klay, einst Assistent von Richard Ford, ein gutes Ohr beweist. Neben dem Jargon fasziniert ihn die Verkürzungsmanie der Soldaten. Eine Erzählung besteht fast nur aus Akronymen, und das Glossar am Ende des Buchs ist hilfreich, um all die "OIF", und "IED" zu entschlüsseln.
Der Vorgesetzte eines Platoons kommt nicht darüber hinweg, dass er seine Marines in die Todeszone geschickt hat. Doch die innere Logik von Kriegen, die auf Zerstörung und Vernichtung ausgerichtet sind, lässt sich nicht aushebeln. Mancher reagiert darauf mit Hybris. "Das Seltsame am Leben als Veteran ist, dass man sich wirklich als etwas Besseres fühlt als andere Menschen", heißt es an einer Stelle.
Amerikanische Kritiker haben Phil Klays Debüt, das soeben mit dem amerikanischen National Book ausgezeichnet wurde, mit Tim O'Briens Erzählsammlung "The Things, they carried" verglichen, die als wichtigste literarische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Vietnam-Krieg gilt. Doch eher lässt sich ein Bezug zu Erich Maria Remarques "Im Westen nichts Neues" herstellen. Das Epos über den Ersten Weltkrieg von 1929, das bis heute als meistgelesenes Buch der deutschen Literatur gilt und erst kürzlich in einer überarbeiteten Fassung erschien, in der sämtliche ursprünglichen Streichungen zurückgenommen wurden, überrascht bei neuerlicher Lektüre nicht nur durch den unheimlich modernen, unprätentiösen Ton existentieller Verlassenheit. Erst heute fällt auf, wie sehr dieser Text nicht nur von den traumatischen Fronterlebnissen des jungen Paul Böhmer handelt, sondern mindestens so sehr von den Nachwirkungen des Krieges auf eine ganze Generation. Remarque selbst sah seinen Roman immer schon eher als ein "Nachkriegsbuch" an, wie Thomas F. Schneider in seinem aufschlussreichen Nachwort schreibt. Den Erfolg erklärte sich sein Autor damit, dass es die Frage stellt, was aus den Menschen geworden ist, die auf diese Weise mit dem Tod konfrontiert waren. Hundert Jahre später schreibt Phil Klay, so alt wie damals Remarque, über einen Krieg unserer Zeit. Wer künftig in der "Tagesschau" Menschen sieht, die irgendwo in Tarnuniformen aus Flugzeugträgern steigen, hat dann zumindest eine Ahnung davon, was in ihnen vorgeht.
Phil Klay: "Wir erschossen auch Hunde". Stories.
Aus dem Amerikanischen von Hannes Meyer. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2014. 300 S., br., 16,99 [Euro].
Alle Rechte vorbehalten. © F.A.Z. GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review:
[Klay captures] on an intimate scale the ways in which the war in Iraq evoked a unique array of emotion, predicament and heartbreak. In Klay s hands, Iraq comes across not merely as a theater of war but as a laboratory of the human condition in extremis. Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people s souls.
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times:
In Redeployment, his searing debut collection of short stories, Phil Klay a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, who served in Iraq during the surge gives the civilian reader a visceral feeling for what it is like to be a soldier in a combat zone, and what it is like to return home, still reeling from the dislocations of war. Gritty, unsparing and fiercely observed, these stories leave us with a harrowing sense of the war in Iraq as it was experienced, day by day, by individual soldiers."
George Packer, The New Yorker:
The best literary work thus far written by a veteran of America s recent wars.... Klay s fiction peels back every pretty falsehood and self-delusion in the encounter between veterans and the people for whom they supposedly fought.
Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine:
An excellent, upsetting debut collection of short stories. Klay s own view is everywhere, existential and practical, at home and abroad, distributed with wonderful clarity of voice and harrowing specificity of experience among Army chaplains, enlisted men, Foreign Service officers, members of Mortuary Affair, and more.
The Wall Street Journal:
The influences behind Mr. Klay s writing go far beyond Iraq. At times Redeployment recapitulates the remarkably tender, self-conscious style that Tim O Brien forged from his experiences in Vietnam Mr. Klay is able to surprise and provoke .Mr. Klay gives a deeply disquieting view of a generation of soldiers reared on war s most terrible contradictions.
Entertainment Weekly:
Klay a Marine who served during the surge has an eye and an ear for a single searing line of dialogue or a scene of maddening dissonance that can pierce your soul .Klay brilliantly manages to wring some sense out of the nonsensical resulting in an extraordinary, if unnerving, literary feat.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Klay's closely observed debut collection of stories makes a fine contribution .Klay establishes an impressive authority over his subject, which he maintains throughout the book in a clipped and jargon-laden prose.
Portland Oregonian:
One of the best debuts of the year.
Men s Journal:
In a book that's drawing comparisons to classic war literature like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Klay examines the deep conflict, in all of us, between wanting to tell our stories and wanting to protect them from being diminished or misunderstood.
The Daily Beast:
Phil Klay has written brilliant, true, and winning fiction on the Iraq War.
Grantland:
Perhaps the most vital short story collection to emerge in the past few years .Redeployment falls somewhere between the in-the-trenches lyricism of Kevin Powers s The Yellow Birds and the bold satire of Ben Fountain s Billy Lynn s Long Halftime Walk. And yet, it feels more urgent than both . Redeployment is urgent, smart, and darkly comic.
Publishers Weekly (starred):
"Klay grasps both tough-guy characterization and life spent in the field, yet he also mines the struggle of soldiers to be emotionally freed from the images they can t stop seeing. It s clear that Klay, himself a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq, has parlayed his insider s knowledge of soldier-bonding and emotional scarring into a collection that proves a powerful statement on the nature of war, violence, and the nuances of human nature."
Kirkus Reviews (starred):
A sharp set of stories....Klay s grasp of bureaucracy and bitter irony here rivals Joseph Heller and George Orwell....A no-nonsense and informed reckoning with combat.
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal:
Important reading; pay attention.
Lawrence Rungren, Library Journal:
"Harrowing at times and blackly comic at others, the author s first collection could become for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts what Tim O Brien s The Things They Carried is for the Vietnam War."
Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:
"If you want to know the real cost of war for those who do the fighting, read Redeployment. These stories say it all, with an eloquence and rare humanity that will simultaneously break your heart and give you reasons to hope."
Nathan Englander, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank:
"As we try to understand the human costs of yet another foreign conflict, Phil Klay brings us the stories of the American combatants, told in a distinct, new, and powerful voice."
Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!:
"Redeployment is a stunning, upsetting, urgently necessary book about the impact of the Iraq war on both soldiers and civilians. Klay's writing is searing and powerful, unsparing of its characters and its readers, art made from a soldier's fearless commitment to confront those losses that can't be tallied in statistics. 'Be honest with me,' a college student asks a returning veteran in one story, and Phil Klay's answer is a challenge of its own: these stories demand and deserve our attention.
Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead:
"Phil Klay's stories are tightly wound psychological thrillers. The global wars of our last decade weave in and out of these affecting tales about characters who sound and feel like your neighbors. Klay comes to us through Leo Tolstoy, Ray Carver, and Ann Beattie. It's a thrill to read a young writer so brilliantly parsing the complexities and vagaries of war. That he does so with surgical precision and artful zest makes this a must-read."
Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin:
"When the history of these times are finally shaken out, and the shredders have all been turned off, we will turn to writers like Phil Klay to finally understand the true nature of who we were, and where we have been, and where we are still going. He slips himself in under the skin of the war with a muscular language and an agile heart and a fair amount of complicated doubt. Redeployment will be one of the great story collections of recent times. Phil Klay is a writer of our times. I can't wait to see what he does next."
Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone:
To most, the war in Iraq is a finished chapter in history. Not so to the Marines, family members, and State Department employees in Phil Klay's electrifying debut collection, Redeployment. Thanks to these provocative and haunting stories, the war will also become viscerally real to readers. Phil Klay is a powerful new voice and Redeployment stands tall with the best war writing of this decade.
Patrick McGrath, author of Trauma:
"Redeployment is fiction of a very high order. These are war stories, written with passion and urgency and consummate writerly skill. There's a clarity here that's lacerating in its precision and exhiliration in its effect."
Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days:
"These stories are surgically precise strikes to the heart; you can't read them without recalling other classic takes on war and loss Conrad, Herr, Hemingway. Klay maps the cast of our recent Middle East conflicts and illuminates its literal, and philosophical center: human casualty."
Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta:
These are gorgeous stories fierce, intelligent and heartbreaking. Phil Klay, a former Marine, brings us both the news from Iraq and the news from back home. His writing is bold and sure, and full of all sorts of authority literary, military and just plain human. This is news we need to hear, from a new writer we need to know about.
[Klay captures] on an intimate scale the ways in which the war in Iraq evoked a unique array of emotion, predicament and heartbreak. In Klay s hands, Iraq comes across not merely as a theater of war but as a laboratory of the human condition in extremis. Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people s souls.
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times:
In Redeployment, his searing debut collection of short stories, Phil Klay a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, who served in Iraq during the surge gives the civilian reader a visceral feeling for what it is like to be a soldier in a combat zone, and what it is like to return home, still reeling from the dislocations of war. Gritty, unsparing and fiercely observed, these stories leave us with a harrowing sense of the war in Iraq as it was experienced, day by day, by individual soldiers."
George Packer, The New Yorker:
The best literary work thus far written by a veteran of America s recent wars.... Klay s fiction peels back every pretty falsehood and self-delusion in the encounter between veterans and the people for whom they supposedly fought.
Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine:
An excellent, upsetting debut collection of short stories. Klay s own view is everywhere, existential and practical, at home and abroad, distributed with wonderful clarity of voice and harrowing specificity of experience among Army chaplains, enlisted men, Foreign Service officers, members of Mortuary Affair, and more.
The Wall Street Journal:
The influences behind Mr. Klay s writing go far beyond Iraq. At times Redeployment recapitulates the remarkably tender, self-conscious style that Tim O Brien forged from his experiences in Vietnam Mr. Klay is able to surprise and provoke .Mr. Klay gives a deeply disquieting view of a generation of soldiers reared on war s most terrible contradictions.
Entertainment Weekly:
Klay a Marine who served during the surge has an eye and an ear for a single searing line of dialogue or a scene of maddening dissonance that can pierce your soul .Klay brilliantly manages to wring some sense out of the nonsensical resulting in an extraordinary, if unnerving, literary feat.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Klay's closely observed debut collection of stories makes a fine contribution .Klay establishes an impressive authority over his subject, which he maintains throughout the book in a clipped and jargon-laden prose.
Portland Oregonian:
One of the best debuts of the year.
Men s Journal:
In a book that's drawing comparisons to classic war literature like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Klay examines the deep conflict, in all of us, between wanting to tell our stories and wanting to protect them from being diminished or misunderstood.
The Daily Beast:
Phil Klay has written brilliant, true, and winning fiction on the Iraq War.
Grantland:
Perhaps the most vital short story collection to emerge in the past few years .Redeployment falls somewhere between the in-the-trenches lyricism of Kevin Powers s The Yellow Birds and the bold satire of Ben Fountain s Billy Lynn s Long Halftime Walk. And yet, it feels more urgent than both . Redeployment is urgent, smart, and darkly comic.
Publishers Weekly (starred):
"Klay grasps both tough-guy characterization and life spent in the field, yet he also mines the struggle of soldiers to be emotionally freed from the images they can t stop seeing. It s clear that Klay, himself a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq, has parlayed his insider s knowledge of soldier-bonding and emotional scarring into a collection that proves a powerful statement on the nature of war, violence, and the nuances of human nature."
Kirkus Reviews (starred):
A sharp set of stories....Klay s grasp of bureaucracy and bitter irony here rivals Joseph Heller and George Orwell....A no-nonsense and informed reckoning with combat.
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal:
Important reading; pay attention.
Lawrence Rungren, Library Journal:
"Harrowing at times and blackly comic at others, the author s first collection could become for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts what Tim O Brien s The Things They Carried is for the Vietnam War."
Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:
"If you want to know the real cost of war for those who do the fighting, read Redeployment. These stories say it all, with an eloquence and rare humanity that will simultaneously break your heart and give you reasons to hope."
Nathan Englander, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank:
"As we try to understand the human costs of yet another foreign conflict, Phil Klay brings us the stories of the American combatants, told in a distinct, new, and powerful voice."
Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!:
"Redeployment is a stunning, upsetting, urgently necessary book about the impact of the Iraq war on both soldiers and civilians. Klay's writing is searing and powerful, unsparing of its characters and its readers, art made from a soldier's fearless commitment to confront those losses that can't be tallied in statistics. 'Be honest with me,' a college student asks a returning veteran in one story, and Phil Klay's answer is a challenge of its own: these stories demand and deserve our attention.
Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead:
"Phil Klay's stories are tightly wound psychological thrillers. The global wars of our last decade weave in and out of these affecting tales about characters who sound and feel like your neighbors. Klay comes to us through Leo Tolstoy, Ray Carver, and Ann Beattie. It's a thrill to read a young writer so brilliantly parsing the complexities and vagaries of war. That he does so with surgical precision and artful zest makes this a must-read."
Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin:
"When the history of these times are finally shaken out, and the shredders have all been turned off, we will turn to writers like Phil Klay to finally understand the true nature of who we were, and where we have been, and where we are still going. He slips himself in under the skin of the war with a muscular language and an agile heart and a fair amount of complicated doubt. Redeployment will be one of the great story collections of recent times. Phil Klay is a writer of our times. I can't wait to see what he does next."
Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone:
To most, the war in Iraq is a finished chapter in history. Not so to the Marines, family members, and State Department employees in Phil Klay's electrifying debut collection, Redeployment. Thanks to these provocative and haunting stories, the war will also become viscerally real to readers. Phil Klay is a powerful new voice and Redeployment stands tall with the best war writing of this decade.
Patrick McGrath, author of Trauma:
"Redeployment is fiction of a very high order. These are war stories, written with passion and urgency and consummate writerly skill. There's a clarity here that's lacerating in its precision and exhiliration in its effect."
Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days:
"These stories are surgically precise strikes to the heart; you can't read them without recalling other classic takes on war and loss Conrad, Herr, Hemingway. Klay maps the cast of our recent Middle East conflicts and illuminates its literal, and philosophical center: human casualty."
Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta:
These are gorgeous stories fierce, intelligent and heartbreaking. Phil Klay, a former Marine, brings us both the news from Iraq and the news from back home. His writing is bold and sure, and full of all sorts of authority literary, military and just plain human. This is news we need to hear, from a new writer we need to know about.