About this item
The Kite Runner meets The Things They Carried in this explosive debut which maps the blurred lines between good and bad, soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished. It is April 2003. American forces have taken Baghdad and are now charged with winning hearts and minds. But this vital tipping point is barely recognized for what it is, as a series of miscalculations and blunders fuels an already-smoldering insurgency intent on making Iraq the next graveyard of empires. In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines: Cassandra, a nineteen-year-old gunner on an American Humvee who is captured during a deadly firefight and awakens in a prison cell; Abu al-Hool, a lifelong mujahedeen beset by a simmering crisis of conscience as he struggles against enemies from without and within, including the next wave of far more radicalized jihadists; and Specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who goes along with a "victimless" crime, the consequences of which are more awful than any he could have imagined.Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat.
About the Author
Brian Van Reet was born in Houston. Following the September 11 attacks, he left the University of Virginia and enlisted in the U.S. Army as a tank crewman. He served in Iraq and received a Bronze Star for valor. His writing has been recognized with awards and fellowships, including from the Michener Center for Writers, and has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Iowa Review, Fire and Forget, and many others. He has twice won the Texas Institute of Letters short story award. His first novel, Spoils, will be published in five languages.
