Phil Klay’s extraordinary short story collection Redeployment, winner of 2014’s National Book Award for fiction, chronicles America’s ill conceived, futile and costly Iraqi occupation. But on a deeper existential level, these stories address good versus evil, human suffering, mercy and, ultimately, the existence of grace. Based on his experiences as a U.S. Marine in Iraq, Klay brings home the visceral essence of war: the smell, the taste, the crazy confusion of battle, the constant fear of dying for nothing. These sensations seep out of the pages and get under your skin. Yet, despite the darkness and conflict, Klay somehow miraculously infuses his war stories with little rays of light and hope.
Klay’s brilliance as a storyteller is his gift for creating characters and situations that are authentic but never clichéd. A grunt forced to shoot stray dogs that are eating corpses left in the streets returns home to find his beloved dog dying. Proud Marines argue for hours over who killed the most Iraqis. U.S. soldiers watch helplessly as an Iraqi child plants IEDs in the roads they travel daily. Madness on parade.
Written with the pinpoint precision of a sniper and the heartfelt eloquence of a poet, Redeployment does what all ageless war stories do: It puts you on the battlefield, asks you to make daily life or death decisions, and sends you home to reconcile what you chose to become. Angel or devil. You decide.
With this stunning debut, Klay takes his place beside some of the great writers of human conflict — Crane, Owen, Conrad, Hemingway, Herr, O’Brien — all of whom have bravely and unflinchingly conveyed the terrible conflicts and absolute horror of war.
Grade: A+
This article appears in Jan 7-14, 2015.
