The Shattered Lens Jonathan Alpeyrie Jonathan Alpeyrie wanted to get that one great shot. Instead what he got was captivity. “The Shattered Lens” is the account of Alpeyrie’s capture by Syrian rebels and his almost three-month stint as their hostage. This is followed by his description of what his family went through trying to free […]
Read more "“The Shattered Lens” by Jonathan Alpeyrie"The New Literary War Hero of Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan Image from “Ninth Company,” dir. Fyodor Bondarchuk When I began reading and writing about contemporary Russian war prose, especially connected to the Chechen wars, I thought that the Russian/Chechen experience, and the literature coming out of it, was unique. And of course the Chechen wars […]
Read more "My Chat with Veteran and Author Andy Owen about War, Literature, and PTSD, Part II"The New Literary War Hero in the Age of the Global War on Terror (Image from the film “Captive,” dir. Aleksey Uchitel) While this blog was originally focused mainly on my side hustle job of writing and reviewing fantasy, readers may have noticed a certain focus on matters military in recent posts, as in my […]
Read more "My Chat with Andy Owen About War, Literature, and PTSD, Part I"China Girl: And Other Stories Ho Lin “She hates the David Bowie song…How could anyone think of that as a beautiful Chinese girl?” So thinks May Lee, the exotic dancer whose story is told in the eponymous opening story of the collection “China Girl,” whose characters move, often ambiguously, between East and West, belonging to […]
Read more "“China Girl: And Other Stories” by Ho Lin"East of Coker Andy Owen In “East of Coker,” the lives of two different generations intertwine: Arthur, a veteran of WWII, befriends a soldier returned from Iraq who is at the same rehab center. Both men are separated from the women they love, and alienated from society around them, Arthur by his age and the […]
Read more "“East of Coker” by Andy Owen"Crossings Jon Kerstetter “Crossings” is subtitled “A Doctor-Soldier’s Story,” but there’s much more to it than that. It chronicles Jon Kerstetter’s service as a flight surgeon in Iraq, but it also tells the story of his whole life, in which his tours in Iraq are just a small part. The son of a single mother […]
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E. P. Clark: Author, Book Reviewer, and All-Around Literary Handiwoman 