The top 10 books about returning from war

Phil Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. In 2014 his short story collection Redeployment was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize and won the National Book Award for Fiction.

One of his top ten books about returning from war, as shared at the Guardian:

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

This savagely funny book satirises the empty rituals and political theatre that determine so much of our response to returned veterans. The main character, brought from Iraq with his squad to take part in a football halftime show, looks around him and thinks, “There’s something harsh in his fellow Americans, avid, ecstatic, a burning that comes of the deepest need. That’s his sense of it, they all need something from him, this pack of half-rich lawyers, dentists, soccer moms, and corporate VPs, they’re all gnashing for a piece of a barely grown grunt making $14,800 a year.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue