Spoils
by Brian Van Reet
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Pub Date Apr 18 2017 | Archive Date Jul 25 2017
Little, Brown and Company | Lee Boudreaux Books
Description
In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines: Cassandra, a nineteen-year-old gunner on an American Humvee who is captured during a deadly firefight and awakens in a prison cell; Abu Al-Hool, a lifelong mujahedeen beset by a simmering crisis of conscience as he struggles against enemies from without and within, including the new wave of far more radicalized jihadists; and Specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who goes along with a "victimless" crime, the consequences of which are more awful than any he could have imagined.
Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat.
"The finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American"-Wall Street Journal, 10 Best Novels of the Year
"An electrifying debut" (The Economist) that maps the blurred lines between good and evil, soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished.
Advance Praise
"Brian Van Reet's beautiful, intense, and at times
disturbing novel Spoils traces the motivations and
desires of combatants on both sides of the Iraq War, showing us what happens
when increasing violence and chaos start to warp the choices they're able to
make."
--- Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
"Moving immediately into the pantheon of first-rate war
novels, Spoils reads like a nightmare within a tragedy, a story that is
both touchingly classic and brutally modern. This is a definitive record
of the war that marked the end of the American Empire. One of the best
novels of our time in the Middle East."
--- Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
and American Rust
"With Spoils Brian Van Reet has given readers an
intensely moving novel. That it is also a nearly comprehensive examination of
our modern wars is a remarkable demonstration of both the power and relevance
of fiction."
--- Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow
Birds
“A strong debut…a fine piece of writing that should stand in the front ranks of recent war novels.”
-Kirkus Reviews starred
"I read this with awe. Spoils
is a harrowing and incredibly powerful debut which shows war in all its
complexity and viciousness and which attempts to humanize it through
extraordinary and conflicted characters. The female soldier Cassandra Wigheard
is superbly drawn and her relationship with the young Jihadist will stay with
me for a long time."
--- Kate Atkinson, bestselling author of A
God in Ruins
-Booklist
“Van Reet’s unsettling tale is an authentic portrayal of combat with its chaos, fear, and the finality of death. It is also a sobering commentary on war’s brutality and the burning intensity of Iraq’s jihadist insurgency.”
-Publishers Weekly
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780316316163 |
| PRICE | $37.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
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