Summary and Reviews of Fobbit by David Abrams

Media Reviews

Montana Standard If Vonnegut and Heller were the undisputed chroniclers of the madness of World War II, Abrams should be considered the resounding new voice of the Iraq War.

Men's Journal Using diaries he kept as a public affairs man in Iraq in 2005, Abrams makes comedy from the clash between positive spin and personal terror.

Time A retired veteran whose 20-year career in the Army included a 2005 tour in Baghdad, Abrams is comfortable and convincing locating the action in Iraq...Fobbit is a vicious skewering of this surprisingly large military subculture of war avoidance.

Publisher's Weekly Starred Review. This novel nails the comedy and the pathos, the boredom and the dread, crafting the Iraq War’s answer to Catch-22.

Booklist First-novelist Abrams punches up the grittiness of war with the dark, cynical humor that comes from living it (he served as a Fobbit in Iraq), crafting images that will haunt readers long after they pry their grip from the book.

Kirkus Reviews Sardonic and poignant. Funny and bitter. Ribald and profane. Confirmation for the anti-war crowd and bile for Bush supporters.

Library Journal A funny, hard-edged satire about recent history and modern war-making, suitable for adult general fiction readers.

 Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life i>Fobbit, an Iraq-war comedy, is that rarest of good things: The book you least expect, and most want. It is everything that terrible conflict was not: Beautifully planned and perfectly executed; funny and smart and lyrical; a triumph. David Abrams has taken up Joe Heller’s mantle - or not mantle; more like his Groucho nose and his whoopee cushion - and so his debut marks the arrival of a massive talent.

 Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. It deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war.

 Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War Fobbit is hilarious, but the subject matter is deadly serious. The protagonist is a 'fobbit,' the term used by the grunts for the non-combatants ensconced inside well-protected forward operating bases, oases of junk food, air-conditioning, and all the comforts of home. But throughout the book, the fobbits are shadowed by the presence of the infantry who live in horrible conditions and are the smelly, dirty, haggard reminders that there is a real war going on just outside the gates. This is a remarkable book because it was written by a man who served as a member of an army public relations team in Iraq, i.e. a fobbit himself. It is the rare writer–indeed, the rare person–who can step outside of himself and see with cold clarity the humor and pathos of his situation and then bring the reader to the same understanding. David Abrams is such a writer.

Reader Reviews

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