War Porn

June 13, 2016
Scranton’s provocative debut novel lucidly captures the fractured perspectives of war. Told in three recurring sections punctuated by fragmentary, poetic introductions, the lives of three characters unfold under the influence of the Iraq War which, at every turn, is mediated and distorted by the lens of mass media. The first section follows civilian Dahlia at a party somewhere in the American Southwest, where she meets Aaron, a veteran newly home from Iraq. Conflicting political ideologies clash as booze and drugs create a dangerous mix for the impassioned opinions. In the second section, Wilson weaves his armored vehicle through the streets of Baghdad while contemplating his role in the conflict. He performs the day-to-day grind of someone who only wears the uniform, cynically following orders sometimes rooted in prejudice against the Muslim civilians. In the third section, Qasim, a mathematics professor in Baghdad, tries to survive the brutality on both sides of the befuddling war while making sense of himself, his country, and what may become of both. Living with his uncle Mohammed and away from his wife, Lateefah, he struggles with the expectations of his family. Having enlisted in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2006 and having been deployed to Iraq, Scranton writes with honesty and authority about a complicated clash of weapons, politics, and culture. His novel is an unflinching, and sometimes difficult, examination of humanity during wartime.

August 1, 2016

The fragmented images of tortured prisoners from Abu Ghraib and the U.S. military's tactic of "shock and awe" are what many remember from the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Scranton (Learning To Die in the Anthropocene; Fire and Forget) experienced these events firsthand during his 14-month deployment in Iraq with the U.S. Army. Here, in his debut novel, Scranton unflinchingly explores the political and moral stress of war inflicted on perpetrators, victims, and observers alike. Through the intertwining narratives of three characters--an American soldier serving in Baghdad, a math professor struggling to survive in occupied Iraq, and a vocal antiwar advocate at a barbecue in Utah--the author demonstrates how voyeurism functions as an anesthetic agent on both the spectator and the participant. Each character yearns to escape from and stop the brutality perceived in the world but finds the cyclical nature of violence inescapable. VERDICT Unlike most contemporary war literature, this work makes no attempt to excuse, venerate, or empathize with combat veterans. The result is an uncompromising look at the trauma of war that will leave readers shattered and disheartened, wondering whether the final gut punch illuminating the violence inherent in our culture was necessary or gratuitous.--Joshua Finnell, Los Alamos National Lab., NM

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2016
If, as tennis star Andre Agassi once claimed, image is everything, how does the feed of information about war get relayed with the highest impact in the age of 24-hour news? How do those bits and pieces merge to create the larger picture? Scranton's fierce debut novel finds out. The front lines of battle can deliver an addictive adrenaline rush, as the unnamed soldier in this narrative proves. In the trenches in Iraq, in the Sadr City that most only see through news flashes, he is a recruit trying to make sense of a mission he wanted to believe would become the anchor for his drifting life. Professor Qasim al-Zabadi is no different in his isolation, drawn back to his native country due to family ties, trying to stay on the fringes of the brewing war, sucked into the maelstrom nevertheless. Scranton delivers a poetic sensibility and a staccato writing style, and the result is a no-holds-barred amalgam of plotlines that is especially tragic given all that we now know about the wrenching mess that is today's Iraq.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)