Anatomy of a Soldier

March 28, 2016
Parker’s debut novel is a gripping wartime story boldly and creatively told from the points of view of inanimate objects surrounding those involved in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. These includes bullets, guns, drones, bombs, wheelchairs, catheters, prosthetic limbs, and an oscillating saw used during amputations, each of which provides a unique piece of the overall experience of a British captain, Tom Barnes, and his team’s involvement in the complicated struggle abroad. Barnes’s story frequently intersects with that of two young men, Faridun and Latif, who were close friends growing up in the war zone but are now torn apart by differing allegiances to those actively fighting the “infidels” and those who seek to restore the peace. The narrative vacillates between wartime scenes and their aftermath; many of the most affecting sequences involve Barnes back at home with family and friends as he recovers from his experience at war and adjusts to the new circumstances of his life. The tragic deterioration of the friendship between Faridun and Latif during Barnes’s time at war is brutal and heartbreaking. Parker, a former soldier himself, is invested in expressing the particulars of war with surprising intimacy, and the unique structure with multiple viewpoints ultimately reveals harsh truths about the countless cogs in the machine of war. A particularly detailed amputation scene is deliberately wrenching, and Parker’s unflinching tone lends the novel its lasting power.

April 1, 2016
This debut novel by a British combat veteran chronicles a soldier's maiming and recovery with an inventiveness that in no way mitigates war's searing heartbreak--or the spirit's indomitability. In the tradition of Dalton Trumbo's 1939 classic, Johnny Got His Gun, which takes place in the shattered consciousness of a horrifically wounded World War I doughboy, Parker's novel makes vivid the drudgery, dread, and appalling spoils of war. Weaving back and forth through time, the narrative focuses on events leading up to and following a land-mine explosion in an unnamed Mideast war zone where a British soldier, introduced as BA5799 but later revealed to be Capt. Tom Barnes, is deployed. The story not only takes in Barnes, but also some of the people for whom the war zone is home, including those responsible for assembling the IED whose detonation causes Capt. Barnes to lose both his legs. What's different about Parker's approach to this story is the way he gives the point of view in each chapter to an inanimate object, whether it's a bag of fertilizer used to make the device or the device itself; whether it's the fungus infecting one of Barnes' shattered legs or the saw used to cut off that leg. Everything from the paper used to print a photo to shaving cream to a backpack to a catheter to an army boot bears witness to the jumbled sequence of events behind Barnes' injury and his rehabilitation. It's a risky way of telling such a harsh story, to say the least. Yet rather than alienating readers from this drama, Parker's storytelling device of using objects as his narrators intensifies the reader's focus on the human emotions--and to Parker's credit, it isn't just Barnes, his family and friends, doctors, nurses, and fellow soldiers who are given dimension, but also the Muslims dedicated to killing as many of the "infidel" invaders as they can. You couldn't call this novel an anti-war tract; it's too grounded in matters of patriotism and duty for that. But you could certainly label it a pro-understanding work of art--and those may be more in need right now than ever before.

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Starred review from March 15, 2016
Parker has written an arresting and unconventional first novel. It concerns a British Army soldier identified only as BA5799, recently arrived in an unnamed war zone. In time, the reader learns that BA5799 is Captain Tom Barnes, who loses both legs to an improvised mine. The novel also focuses on two boys, Latif and Faridun, who were friends through childhood. Then Latif is drawn into insurgency, and the teens become estranged. The unconventionality comes in the narrative; each short chapter is related from the point of view of an object: Faridun's bicycle, a bag of fertilizer that becomes the IED that takes Barnes' legs, a single bullet in a rifle magazine. The narration is concise yet often detailed, whether the subject matter is Barnes' rehabilitation or Latif's family life. The objects are conscious of the events they relate, but only the fungus exploded into Barnes' ravaged body is self-conscious. It matter-of-factly notes that its destiny is to kill its host and thereby kill itself. Anatomy of a Soldier is disorienting but deeply compelling, and that quality is only heightened by the knowledge that the author suffered the same injuries as his protagonist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)