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Book Reviewed by: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.
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 learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains - of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. 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. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation.
National Book Awards
2014
National Book Critics Circle Awards
2014
In choosing fiction, Klay had greater creative liberty, and in using short stories, he had the advantage of still greater variety – in locales, points of view and of course, characters. Redeployment communicates powerfully, articulating the experience of war from a diversity of viewpoints. Because of this wide angle view, it seems like it should be required reading before any recruit becomes a grunt...continued
Full Review
(831 words)
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(Reviewed by Stacey Brownlie).
Redeployment author Phil Klay's service as a Marine made him part of what is arguably the most revered part of the United States military. The Corps is not technically a branch of the U.S. military, but is a special service affiliated with the Navy. The Army was established by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775 and the Navy on October 13, 1775. The Marine Corps began as a naval infantry by order of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775 when volunteers responded to the recruiting call at taverns around Philadelphia. The owner of Tun Tavern, Robert Mullan, was one of the first to accept the call and his establishment is now affectionately known as the birthplace of the Marine Corps. Service members designated as Marines ...
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If you liked Redeployment, try these:
by Bill Glose
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For readers of Phil Klay, Kevin Powers, and Tim O'Brien: Dramatic, powerful, authentic short stories of soldiers fighting a "forever war," in combat and back home.
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Published 2019
From the National Book Award finalist, a breathtakingly spare and shattering new novel that traces the intersection of three star-crossed lives.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
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Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead
Phil Klay's stories are tightly wound psychological thrillers. The global wars of our last decade weave in and out of these affecting tales about characters who sound and feel like your neighbors... It's a thrill to read a young writer so brilliantly parsing the complexities and vagaries of war. That he does so with surgical precision and artful zest makes this a must-read.
