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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
This book is a collection of stories about veterans. Each story is unique in that we catch a glimpse of how the individual is adapting to civilian life after service or coping with changes that took place while they were away - changes in American society, changes within themselves, or changes in the lives of their loved ones. There's some very strong writing in this book, and stylistically I enjoyed the prose. It's concise and moves the story along well. However, this book is not for individuals with a weak stomach - there are some graphic descriptions of injuries and I found myself cringing more than once (and I have a fairly high tolerance). Worth the read if you're interested learning a little more about the aftermath of combat.
Note: I was given a free ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
Note: I was given a free ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
Not all casualties of war happen on the battlefield – or even inside a war zone, for that matter. Thousands occur long after soldiers return to what should be the safe havens of their homes and families. It is only then that these young men and women finally succumb to the pressures they lived under for so many months while serving as repeated targets for Islamist extremists in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. And when they finally crack, the results are tragic for them and everyone close to them.
Luke Mogelson, in his debut short story collection These Heroic, Happy Dead, offers ten stories about men and women who survived “the war” only to be undone by “the peace” to which they came home. Each brought the worst of what they saw and did in the Middle East home with them, and each is paying a heavy price for having done so. What makes the stories in the collection so effective is that they are presented first and foremost as character studies of people finding it near impossible to cope with the modern world. They may be jobless, estranged from their wives and children, homeless, suicidal, victims of addictions, or prone to violent outbursts, but what they all have in common is that they are casualties of war. Remarkably, however, the tone of Mogelson’s ten stories is not particularly anti-war, something that makes them all the more powerful.
The book’s overall tone is solidly set by its first story, “To the Lake,” in which two veterans, one a double-amputee, meet in the holding tank of a remote county jail. Mentally and physically fragile as both men are, it still remains for the amputee to come to the rescue of his more able-bodied comrade. But now it might be up to the rescued vet to save the life of the man who just bailed him out of jail.
Not all victims of war ever were soldiers. Some of them are the parents of soldiers, some are the spouses of soldiers, and some are the children of soldiers – and Mogelson includes stories about them, too. “Visitors” tells of a mother who drives long hours every Wednesday to visit her veteran son in prison - where he’s paying the price for killing a man in a bar fight that happened just two months after he came home from what was supposed to be his real war. “Sea Bass” is a boy’s account of how difficult his father found it to hold a job after returning from war, and what happened on the last day he ever saw him. And in perhaps the most perplexing story of the entire collection, there is “Kids,” the story of a boy in Afghanistan who was either trying to steer an American patrol away from or toward a booby-trapped room. Without a translator, no one could be certain, and whatever the boy intended, it could not have been what ended up actually happening.
These Heroic, Happy Dead is a remarkable short story compilation, and it marks Luke Mogelson as someone to watch for in future.
Luke Mogelson, in his debut short story collection These Heroic, Happy Dead, offers ten stories about men and women who survived “the war” only to be undone by “the peace” to which they came home. Each brought the worst of what they saw and did in the Middle East home with them, and each is paying a heavy price for having done so. What makes the stories in the collection so effective is that they are presented first and foremost as character studies of people finding it near impossible to cope with the modern world. They may be jobless, estranged from their wives and children, homeless, suicidal, victims of addictions, or prone to violent outbursts, but what they all have in common is that they are casualties of war. Remarkably, however, the tone of Mogelson’s ten stories is not particularly anti-war, something that makes them all the more powerful.
The book’s overall tone is solidly set by its first story, “To the Lake,” in which two veterans, one a double-amputee, meet in the holding tank of a remote county jail. Mentally and physically fragile as both men are, it still remains for the amputee to come to the rescue of his more able-bodied comrade. But now it might be up to the rescued vet to save the life of the man who just bailed him out of jail.
Not all victims of war ever were soldiers. Some of them are the parents of soldiers, some are the spouses of soldiers, and some are the children of soldiers – and Mogelson includes stories about them, too. “Visitors” tells of a mother who drives long hours every Wednesday to visit her veteran son in prison - where he’s paying the price for killing a man in a bar fight that happened just two months after he came home from what was supposed to be his real war. “Sea Bass” is a boy’s account of how difficult his father found it to hold a job after returning from war, and what happened on the last day he ever saw him. And in perhaps the most perplexing story of the entire collection, there is “Kids,” the story of a boy in Afghanistan who was either trying to steer an American patrol away from or toward a booby-trapped room. Without a translator, no one could be certain, and whatever the boy intended, it could not have been what ended up actually happening.
These Heroic, Happy Dead is a remarkable short story compilation, and it marks Luke Mogelson as someone to watch for in future.
These Heroic, Happy Dead is an excellent short story collection by Luke Mogelson. Mogelson covered Afghanistan as a freelancer which gives his stories that experiential authenticity that is common in the best writing about war. Of course, calling The Heroic, Happy Dead military or war fiction is misleading. These are stories about humanity and what we do to it in the service of war.
Because it is a short story anthology, of course people compare it to Tim O’Brien’s magical The Things They Carried. That is unfair to both authors. O’Brien is a more expansive writer than Mogelson and his prose is far more direct. The power of O’Brien’s writing comes from his imagery and the poetry of his language. O’Brien is direct, he explains what he is thinking, we know his point of view. Questions raised in one O’Brien story are answered in another.
Mogelson is elliptical, abstruse, anything but direct. He leaves much unknown. Questions raised in one of his stories elicit more questions in another. Yes, you recognize a character from another story, but you still don’t know much more about him. You read one of Mogelson’s stories and ask what is the point, what is he trying to tell us. But, and this is important, if we are to believe Tim O’Brien, and I think we should; that is the essence of a true war story. O’Brien wrote one of his most powerful stories about the idea of a true war story. According to him a true war story is never moral, there are no great truths revealed. He wrote you can tell a true war story by the questions it elicits and whether the answer matter. True war stories never seem to end and often don’t have a point, at least not one you get right away. Most of all, he said that a true war story is not a war story, it is a love story.
I set great store in Tim O’Brien’s judgment. He is one of my favorite writers and The Things They Carried is a book I have read dozens of times. I think Tim O’Brien would say that Mogelson writes true war stories. With Mogelson there are no answers and all that pain, sorrow, grief and death remain a mystery, they make you ask more questions, unanswered questions. We like to finish a book knowing all the answers, the loose ends tied up and the snarls unraveled. Chaos, uncertainty, and a bevy of unanswered questions make us feel the author didn’t do his job. Except when his job is to tell a true war story.
Mogelson’s stories are flawed, though, in the absence of women. There are more women in the military than ever before and many more in combat zones, but they are essentially invisible in the stories. There is one sympathetic female character. Two if you count the woman killed in a restaurant who appears more as a memory than a character. This is a story about men in war.
4pawsNonetheless, I loved These Heroic, Happy Dead. I encourage others to read it because it is a love story. Not one love story, many love stories about the men who volunteered to barter their souls, minds and bodies in the service of war. There are many motives for enlisting, but people do not enlist to do evil. Yet war, no matter how we separate ourselves and sanitize it, remains brutal, grotesque and evil. Mogelson asks us to love these soldiers who are scarred and broken by what we ask them to do. You won’t find answers in These Heroic, Happy Dead but you will find questions, questions we need to be asking loudly and often.
I received an ARC of These Heroic, Happy Dead in a giveaway drawing on LibraryThing.
Because it is a short story anthology, of course people compare it to Tim O’Brien’s magical The Things They Carried. That is unfair to both authors. O’Brien is a more expansive writer than Mogelson and his prose is far more direct. The power of O’Brien’s writing comes from his imagery and the poetry of his language. O’Brien is direct, he explains what he is thinking, we know his point of view. Questions raised in one O’Brien story are answered in another.
Mogelson is elliptical, abstruse, anything but direct. He leaves much unknown. Questions raised in one of his stories elicit more questions in another. Yes, you recognize a character from another story, but you still don’t know much more about him. You read one of Mogelson’s stories and ask what is the point, what is he trying to tell us. But, and this is important, if we are to believe Tim O’Brien, and I think we should; that is the essence of a true war story. O’Brien wrote one of his most powerful stories about the idea of a true war story. According to him a true war story is never moral, there are no great truths revealed. He wrote you can tell a true war story by the questions it elicits and whether the answer matter. True war stories never seem to end and often don’t have a point, at least not one you get right away. Most of all, he said that a true war story is not a war story, it is a love story.
I set great store in Tim O’Brien’s judgment. He is one of my favorite writers and The Things They Carried is a book I have read dozens of times. I think Tim O’Brien would say that Mogelson writes true war stories. With Mogelson there are no answers and all that pain, sorrow, grief and death remain a mystery, they make you ask more questions, unanswered questions. We like to finish a book knowing all the answers, the loose ends tied up and the snarls unraveled. Chaos, uncertainty, and a bevy of unanswered questions make us feel the author didn’t do his job. Except when his job is to tell a true war story.
Mogelson’s stories are flawed, though, in the absence of women. There are more women in the military than ever before and many more in combat zones, but they are essentially invisible in the stories. There is one sympathetic female character. Two if you count the woman killed in a restaurant who appears more as a memory than a character. This is a story about men in war.
4pawsNonetheless, I loved These Heroic, Happy Dead. I encourage others to read it because it is a love story. Not one love story, many love stories about the men who volunteered to barter their souls, minds and bodies in the service of war. There are many motives for enlisting, but people do not enlist to do evil. Yet war, no matter how we separate ourselves and sanitize it, remains brutal, grotesque and evil. Mogelson asks us to love these soldiers who are scarred and broken by what we ask them to do. You won’t find answers in These Heroic, Happy Dead but you will find questions, questions we need to be asking loudly and often.
I received an ARC of These Heroic, Happy Dead in a giveaway drawing on LibraryThing.