These Heroic, Happy Dead
Stories
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
With his harrowing debut, Luke Mogelson provides an unsentimental, unflinching glimpse into the lives of those forever changed by war. Subtle links between these ten powerful stories magnify the consequences of combat for both soldiers and civilians, as the violence experienced abroad echoes through their lives in America.
Troubled veterans first introduced as criminals in “To the Lake” and “Visitors” are shown later in “New Guidance” and “Kids,” during the deployments that shaped their futures. A seemingly minor soldier in “New Guidance” becomes the protagonist of “A Human Cry,” where his alienation from society leads to a shocking confrontation. The fate of a hapless Gulf War veteran who reenlists in “Sea Bass” is revealed in “Peacetime,” the story of a New York City medic's struggle with his inurement to calamity . A shady contractor job gone wrong in “A Beautiful Country” is a news item for a reporter in “Total Solar,” as he navigates the surreal world of occupied Kabul. Shifting in time and narrative perspective—from the home front to active combat, between experienced leaders, flawed infantrymen, a mother, a child, an Afghan-American translator, and a foreign correspondent--these stories offer a multifaceted examination of the unexpected costs of war.
Here is an evocative, deep work that charts the legacy of an unprecedented conflict, and the burdens of those it touched. Written with remarkable empathy and elegance, These Heroic, Happy Dead heralds the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The effects of war hover like a leaky umbrella over the 10 stories that furnish Mogelson's cogent debut collection, which finds veterans, active servicemen, and those around them struggling through conflicts at home and in combat. In "To the Lake," a troubled ex-soldier drives into a New England snowstorm in hopes of reaching his estranged girlfriend, yet ends up instead at the home of another damaged veteran after, among other events, his truck loses control and crashes. "Visitors" follows the mother of a soldier in prison for an accidental murder as she grows accustomed to seeing her son behind bars. Across the ocean, "A Beautiful Country" finds a former commando traveling the vast expanse of Afghanistan for work as an independent military contractor, and "Total Solar" concerns a journalist caught in an attack on a garden restaurant in Kabul. Perhaps the strongest story is "Kids," which studies grief through the eyes of an active Army captain as he loses comrades within his unit and outside his patrol base. Mogelson follows a traditional story structure throughout, often feathering in backstory in expected ways, and his narratives remain compelling. Hope is hard to come by in this collection, but the stories will linger with the reader.