Praise for Fire and Forget:
Searing stories from the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the USA by warrior writers. Fire and Forget is about not forgetting. It is a necessary collection, necessary to write, necessary to read.”
Devastating stories including “The Train” by former marine Marinette Kalinowski. Non-fiction seems “easier” to read. But serious profound heartrending fiction goes so deep, touches us so powerfully, it is what we require.
I’ve been waiting for this book for a decade. I laughed, shouted, and cried while reading this kaleidoscopic collection. So many facets of war and the people who do our fighting are covered here. Fire and Forget is a literary history of this latest period of American wars. It’s a profound and telling work of art.
A diverse anthology on our long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan united by the extraordinary talents of its authors. These stories are exceptional.
From Siobhan Fallon’s moving anatomy of what a waiting spouse has to look forward to after her husband’s third deployment, to Brian Van Reet’s brilliant gloss on Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River,” these stories mark the territory of Return, in a manner both rich and essential.
A resonant, moving collection of stories from writers who know firsthand about the incongruous beauty and constant tragedy of war.
Reviews:
The beginnings of what just might be the next chapter of great American war literature.
- New York Daily News
The range of stories in Fire and Forget displays a remarkable depth and breadth of the experience of the Iraq war.
- The Guardian
Captures the messiness of soldiering when the mission and endgame are unclear. Though fiction, each work reads true, filled with tension, fear, and anger.
- Booklist
This is fiction as good as you’ll read anywhere….These pages contain a record of the costs of our excursions abroad that is as illustrative as any culture can produce.
- The Daily Beast
Only these authors and others like them could engage in challenging sacred American narratives of good versus evil as America fights its enemies abroad.
- The Rumpus
You are unlikely to forget the quality of the work…in this collection.
- Army Times
Faced with something as unspeakably harrowing as war, the voices here have salvaged what small beauty they could from the turmoil.
- Newcity
With wars come war stories and from those stories evolves literature. Leading this generation of war literature is this collection of short stories.
- Library Journal
Gritty with realism….The tales are exceedingly well told. Fiction it may be, but none can deny the ring of truth.
- The Roanoke Times
Anyone who served and anyone who wants to know what it was to serve will value this book.
- Bookviews
Fire and Forget, like almost any war, is an uncomfortable look into the dark corners of humanity.
- Willamette Week
This book is a wonderful surprise and a wrenching education at the same time.
- North Shore Book Notes
From Da Capo Press:
Featuring a foreword by National Book Award-winner Colum McCann, this anthology spans every era of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from Baghdad to Brooklyn, from Kabul to Fort Hood, and includes the best voices of a generation.
Available at local bookstores and online:
