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Matt Gallagher

Youngblood Paperback – 6 September 2016

by Matt Gallagher (Author)

63 ratings

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"An urgent and deeply moving novel" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) about a young American soldier struggling to find meaning during the final, dark days of the War in Iraq.

The US military is preparing to withdraw from Iraq, and newly minted lieutenant Jack Porter struggles to accept how it's happening--through alliances with warlords who have Arab and American blood on their hands. Day after day, Jack tries to assert his leadership in the sweltering, dreary atmosphere of Ashuriyah. But his world is disrupted by the arrival of veteran Sergeant Daniel Chambers, whose aggressive style threatens to undermine the fragile peace that the troops have worked hard to establish.

As Iraq plunges back into chaos and bloodshed and Chambers's influence over the men grows stronger, Jack becomes obsessed with a strange, tragic tale of reckless love between a lost American soldier and Rana, a local sheikh's daughter. In search of the truth and buoyed by the knowledge that what he finds may implicate Sergeant Chambers, Jack seeks answers from the enigmatic Rana, and soon their fates become intertwined. Determined to secure a better future for Rana and a legitimate and lasting peace for her country, Jack will defy American command, putting his own future in grave peril.

For fans of Phil Klay's Redeployment or Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Youngblood provides startling new dimension to both the moral complexity of war and its psychological toll.

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Product details

Publisher : Washington Square Press; Reprint edition (6 September 2016)
Language : English
Paperback : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 1501105752
ISBN-13 : 978-1501105753
Dimensions : 13.49 x 2.54 x 20.96 cm

Customer Reviews:
63 ratings

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Review

"A timely and moving story of the realities and psychological consequences of war."-- "Harper's Bazaar"

Youngblood airlifts readers into the Iraq War, and through Matt Gallagher's eyes we find the place unsettlingly intimate, sublimely corporeal, ribald and gripping. With the promise of withdrawal shimmering on the horizon, Gallagher's LT Jack is a mesmerizing narrator, the Charles Marlow of Iraq, urging our vessel deeper into a land of secrets and veils, deeper into the anarchic and ambivalent psyches of the men both occupying and being occupied. This muscular novel cements Gallagher's role as our essential biographer of the forever war.
--Claire Vaye Watkins, award-winning author of Gold Fame Citrus "Oregonian Review"

Youngblood is not only a 'war novel, ' it is a rich, fully formed, and beautifully executed novel-novel, way beyond the chicken coops of genre, a novel about the human heart in contest with itself, a novel about memory and longing and grief and hope and guilt and late-night ironies that raise a chuckle to the lips of the dead. Yes, the people and events in this fine novel are certainly 'tangled up' with war, as the author puts it on page one, but it is the same sort of entanglement that Lord Jim has with the ocean, or the sort of entanglement that Huck Finn has with the river.--Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried "Oregonian Review"

"'iCasualties', 'electricity recons', and 'Mesopotamian Cadillacs';'finding out on Facebook that your fiance's dead. Gallagher humanizes these--war's--alien and extraordinary elements. Youngblood is a beautiful book. It will break your heart."--Lea Carpenter, critically-acclaimed author of Eleven Days "Oregonian Review"

"A complex tale about the Iraq War, intrigue, love, and survival. Gallagher follows up on his successful first book, the memoir Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (2010), with a smart Iraq War novel that adds something new to the genre--new genres. Gallagher subtly weaves throughout this excellent, brutal tale intrigue, a mystery, and two compelling love stories... A fresh twist on the Iraq War novel adds depth to this burgeoning genre."-- "Kirkus, starred review"

"A gripping, compelling novel about war and country by an exceedingly talented veteran of Iraq who writes with a soldier's eye and a poet's soul. Youngblood is a captivating story of hope and loss, love and ruin that transports readers to the war as it was felt and lived - by Americans and Iraqis alike. It clearly deserves a place on the top shelf of American war literature." --General (Ret.) David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq (2003-2004), Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (2004-2005), Multinational Force-Iraq (2007-2008), and U.S. Central Command (2008-2010) "Oregonian Review"

"Smart and riveting."-- "Vogue"

"The despair of the Iraqis and the dead-pan wit of the boys who wear the lightning bolt. The spikes of adrenaline in the firefights. The brutal exchange rate of blood and blood money. The tyranny of the sun. Gallagher nails them all, with a voice that is both confident and illuminating."-- "Oregonian Review"

"Thrilling, tragic, and darkly funny, Matt Gallagher's Youngblood is a brilliant portrait of command in the modern, morally bruising battlefield."--Phil Klay, New York Times bestselling author of Redeployment "Oregonian Review"

[Gallagher] writes about war like you've never read before ... in its emotional nuance, Youngblood codifies the fact that this is a voice to be reckoned with.
-- "Esquire"

About the Author

Matt Gallagher is a Wake Forest graduate and US Army veteran. He's the author of the novels Youngblood and the memoir Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War. He holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia and has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn.

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4 star		16%
3 star		9%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		6%

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Richard

An Excellent Story Within the Genre of Military Fiction

Reviewed in Canada on 12 August 2016

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A book within the genre of military fiction, Matt Gallagher writes a beautiful tale of struggle, love, and soul-searching.

The book is centered around the story of a lieutenant's experiences during the Iraq War, in which he tries to deal with issues regarding his position within his platoon and the community around him. His early experiences of peace (in the novel) are shattered by the arrival of a new member, as well as the unraveling of stories that seem to occupy every part of his new life.

With the page-turning plot, humour, and encounters, this novel is a fantastic read overall. Although the vocabulary might be difficult at times, the images painted by the author's words helps to amplify the reader's emotions to the situations surrounding Lieutenant Jack (whether it is confusion, happiness, sadness, or anxiety).

Thomas

An unequivocal inspiration, for all of the wrong reasons.

Reviewed in the United States on 3 September 2017

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I honestly can't believe the endorsements that some truly talented writers have made of this turd of a novel. Clearly they had some incentive other than the actual quality of the book that made them dole out such glowing praise, I wonder what that incentive could be?
Have none of you read actual good war novels, that you think this is something worthy of any praise at all? SHAME.

I can't begin to describe how much respect I lost for Tim O'Brien when I read his glowing praise of this book splayed across the back cover, and then discovered that he must have either read a different book altogether or be a totally disingenuous person who will say anything for a few bucks.

There are so many instances of terrible writing in this book that I don't even want to give specific examples, it would take me too long to write them all down. I couldn't read more than two pages at a time without shaking my head or literally crying out in disgust at the undeserved acclaim Matt Gallagher has received for this work. I really wanted to finish this book, just so that I could give a review based on having read the whole thing, but after 230 pages of the 330 or so I honestly can't take it anymore. Although to be fair, I couldn't get past the first ten pages of his first book so I guess you could say he's getting better at his craft. You might even go so far as to say he's Learning to Embrace the Suck!

What this work truly speaks to, or rather what its "critical acclaim" speaks to, is the absolute dearth of talented veterans writing Iraq war fiction from the perspective of the US military. God how I long for the distant future days when the true writing talents that this war produced will step into the light and let their stories be known to us all.
Good on you Matt, you have inspired me to get my own Iraq war novel finished as soon as I can before you have a chance to publish another stinker like this one.

One person found this helpful

David Grogan

with a ghostly saga of unrequited love at its core

Reviewed in the United States on 17 February 2016

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What distinguishes Youngblood is not just that it is a worthy addition to the growing canon of literature about the military morass in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that it transcends facile categorization as a war story. “So little of Iraq had anything to do with guns or bombs or jihad. That’s what people never understand,” muses the novel’s idealistic young protagonist, Lt. Jack Porter, who struts and frets his hour across the stage during a relatively peaceful interlude following the illusory gains of The Surge, when America prepares to pull up stakes and Iraq begins to descend into sectarian chaos. This is a story about the malleable nature of both morality and memory and how seemingly righteous choices made in the heat of the moment can lead to unintended consequences. It is also an old-fashioned page-turner, deftly punctuated by moments of sharp humor and tender pathos, with a ghostly saga of unrequited love at its core. In short, it is a damn good read, which is as much about eternal mysteries of the heart and soul as it is about the shifting contingencies of war. “What was it like?” Porter asks rhetorically. “Hell if I know. But next time someone asks, I won’t answer straight and clean. I’ll answer crooked, and I’ll answer long. And when they get confused or angry, I’ll smile.”

11 people found this helpful

jjdhmi

Wow

Reviewed in the United States on 26 July 2016

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This is an amazingly well-written novel that gives us a good picture of how our post-911 adventures are experienced by deployed American soldiers on a day to day basis. The characters are realistically drawn, complex and fascinating, interacting with characters and settings of modern day Iraq..

One person found this helpful

B. Adducchio

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on 24 May 2020

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Youngblood is a great book. It’s partly a war novel; partly a romantic drama. I’m eager to read more of Matt Gallagher’s work!

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