[New arrivals] Redeployment
AUTHOR : Phil Klay
PUBLISHER: Penguin Books
PRICE($): 16
GENRE: Literature & Fiction
Winner of the 2014 National Book Award
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 return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people “who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died.”
A mortuary-affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains-of both U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. 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.
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Information provided by Tongbang Publications (www.tongbangbooks.com). The books are available at major bookstores, such as Youngpoong, Kyobo and Bandi & Luni’s.
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with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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