This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...morePosts Tagged: David Abrams
Notable NYC: 11/11–11/17
Literary events and readings in and around New York City this week!
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War Narratives #4: Meet the Civilians
Each character achieves independence in his own way, but independence winds up looking a lot like loneliness.
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War Narratives #1: Truth and Fiction
The notion that the truth about combat cannot be described in a book goes back to the American Civil War, at least.
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“Fobbit,” by David Abrams
“The real war is unlikely to be found in novels,” writes the late Paul Fussell, in his book Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. He argues that novels are unlikely purveyors of wartime truth because on one hand, novels are poor vehicles for harsh wartime truths, and on the other hand, because […]
...more“Do Take Every Opportunity to Tell ‘The Army Story'”
“Here are some of the things you need to know.” Gooding handed Pilley a card, laminated to slip smoothly into and out of his wallet, with a bulleted list of do’s and don’ts. Pilley stared at the card like it had the answers to the algebra final exam. He licked his white lips and coughed […]
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The Rumpus Interview with David Abrams
David Abrams served for twenty years in the U.S. Army. He talks to us about his debut novel, Fobbit, a tragicomic rendering of things he observed in Baghdad.
...moreAbrams At The Millions
The Millions featured David Abrams in their Post-40 Bloomer column and chronicle the 49-year-olds long road to literary success. Fobbit, Abrams’s first novel, came out from Grove/Atlantic on Sept. 4 and is “is a tale of the Iraq war that manages to be as dark as it is funny, which is to say considerably.” Abrams spent […]
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