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A review by dkrane
Redeployment by Phil Klay
4.0
Phil Klay knows the power of a punchy sentence: starting with his opening sentence, “We shot dogs,” he stress his stories with bold, unvarnished writing. A lot of this does wonders for bringing the action and viscera of Iraq to life—a lot of the book is harrowing stuff, and definitely leaves you with a much better portrait of the boredom, the guilt, the pain, the moral quandaries and humor, the masculinity and uncertainty, that seems to comprise a lot of soldiers’ experiences.
So why not a 5? Probably for the same reason pointed out by Roxane Gay in her review—a little too much blending together of protagonists and stories. That said, collection highlights include “Bodies” story of a high school relationship crumbling with a soldier’s enlistment; “Money as a Weapons System” and its ridiculous portrait of bureaucracy and foreign service as a man tries to do good while being forced to teach Iraqis baseball; “Prayer in the Furnace” and its picture of a chaplain whose faith is challenged by the brutality of war; “Psychological Operations” tale of an Egyptian Coptic trying to unburden himself to a fellow college student after his tour of duty; and “Unless it’s a Sucking Chest Wound” and its protagonist, a law student who saw little action himself but consigned a reenlisting man to die and can’t help latching onto the war, parasitically, back home.
So why not a 5? Probably for the same reason pointed out by Roxane Gay in her review—a little too much blending together of protagonists and stories. That said, collection highlights include “Bodies” story of a high school relationship crumbling with a soldier’s enlistment; “Money as a Weapons System” and its ridiculous portrait of bureaucracy and foreign service as a man tries to do good while being forced to teach Iraqis baseball; “Prayer in the Furnace” and its picture of a chaplain whose faith is challenged by the brutality of war; “Psychological Operations” tale of an Egyptian Coptic trying to unburden himself to a fellow college student after his tour of duty; and “Unless it’s a Sucking Chest Wound” and its protagonist, a law student who saw little action himself but consigned a reenlisting man to die and can’t help latching onto the war, parasitically, back home.