The Human Body

The boredom, horror, and hope of war come together beautifully in Edoardo Ballerini's performance. Not one moment of the suffering of Italian soldiers sent to Afghanistan or their families is lost to Ballerini. Their emotional distress is as poignant as the moments of dark comedy--and there are a surprising number of humorous moments interwoven with their loss, disillusionment, and desperation. In other hands, these shifts from tragedy to humor (dark though it is) might be confusing or even lost on listeners, but Ballerini is able to relate a strange idea hinted at throughout the story: Tragedy and levity are sometimes the same thing. This novel is by no means a comedy, but Ballerini is justified in acknowledging the farcical moments that appear throughout the story. N.J.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 1, 2014
Giordano follows The Solitude of Prime Numbers with a stunning exploration of war. The novel revolves around a platoon of Italian soldiers stationed in Forward Operating Base Ice in the dangerous Gulistan district of Afghanistan. Giordano makes the tedium of combat fascinating with his well-drawn characters. Included in the cast is Lieutenant Egitto, a medical officer escaping his perilous home life; girlfriend-obsessed First Corporal-Major Torsu; and the boisterous Cderna. Giordano covers everything from preparation for deployment—the weekend before they leave, all the soldiers’ girlfriends want to watch movies, but the soldiers want to “tank up on sex for the upcoming months of abstinence”—to the ways soldiers stay in touch with those left at home. The first page indicates that the platoon’s experience was particularly horrible (“In the years following the mission, each of the guys set out to make his life unrecognizable, until the memories... were bathed in a false artificial light”), but the fact that the mission runs off the rails is almost secondary to the beauty, texture, and acuity with which Giordano captures the day-to-day routines of the soldiers, and their efforts to make sense of both their lives in Italy and their military assignment.