The War is Language: 101 Short Works

By NathJones

General Fiction

Language: English Not Rated (NR)

0.0

0 ratings

265

No. of pages

106

Views

Buy Online: Smashwords Scribd Kindle

Overview Ratings & Reviews

This high-impact triptych of prose poetry and flash fiction probes identity in experience. Focusing on the impressions of a woman and a soldier as 21st-century Americans, the first and second sections of the book explore memory and dichotomy respectively. The book’s third section, letters to a fake advice columnist, is a sarcastic interaction with an absurd existential authority figure. As a whole, the book calls into question our post-post-modern establishment of anti-authority conformists.

The Story Behind This Book

There were many reasons to write this book, but one of the most vivid occurred amidst the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. I was reading the news and came across a picture of a female soldier seeming to gloat above torture victims. The starving, bloodied men piled at her feet were totally dehumanized: naked, hooded, likely sodomized or just back from the water board. The female soldier--a young woman, a girl really--was smiling. I looked at that photograph as long as I could. I thought, "How could a woman do that?" Men, maybe. But a woman? No. And then I thought back to my state of mind when I joined the Army in 1995. Rage. Aggression. Violence. Lack of respect for others. Self-loathing. You name it. Whatever bullet-point is on the back of a brochure in a psychologist's office, I qualified. But I never went to war. Thank God. And I do not think I would ever have done what the woman in the picture was so happy to do. What I did think was, "How could I reach that woman? What might I be able to say to stop her?"

Praise and Reviews

‎"I was really blown away by this series of shorts." -- Ashton Amo

http://ashtonthebookblogger.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-war-is-language-101-short-works.html

"Her arsenal of words is substantial, and she has the same command of phonics that makes EE Cummings poems so effective." -- Alice Yeh

http://www.hideandread.com/2011/09/war-is-language-101-short-works-nath.html

"The third and final section about letters to a fake advice columnist was titled Letters When Gods Won't Do and this was my favourite section. Some of them were hilarious and I felt that I had to pass my Kindle across to my wife to let her read them, I think she started getting annoyed when I ended up doing it for nearly every letter at one point." -- David King

http://killie-booktalk.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html