Babylon by Bus

In reading what could be called "Beavis and Butthead Reconstruct Iraq" or "Fear and Loathing in Baghdad," Jeremy Davidson entertains while keeping the detail crisp and clear. He maintains a sense of the irreverence and goofiness of the young American authors--entrepreneurs, low-ball world travelers, gamblers, dopers--who went to Baghdad on a whim and landed jobs administering charities, but he still conveys the wealth of information and insight they provide. We never lose sight of Ray and Jeff's personalities, their humor, and their "yo, dude!" point of view on the pomposity, dishonesty, and stupidity of the Coalition Provisional Authority--or their respect for the individuals who tried to do good under its doubtful auspices. W.M. 2007 Audies Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

May 29, 2006
What do you get when you mix a couple of booze-guzzling, Valium-addled, 20-something slackers from urban America with centuries-old sectarian hatred and a dubious war? Well, you get this alternately lame, alternately compelling tale from the first year after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. At loose ends, T-shirt merchants (selling "Yankees suck" at Fenway) Lemoine and Neumann decide to head out to Iraq by way of Israel. Having passed on an opportunity to go to Baghdad earlier in the war—"During Iraq's looting, the thought of loading up a stolen Lamborghini with Persian rugs and Baathist booty had crossed our minds. Stupid, I know"—these scalawags quickly find themselves in the middle of the Green Zone in Baghdad, scamming their way into jobs managing an NGO, dodging angry mobs in Sadr City and partying with just about everybody in town. Along with the boozing ("Jeff and I awoke at the NPR house with searing hangovers from a night of booze and pills"), there's a lot of name-dropping (among many others, Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker
). Not entirely without merit, the book does capture a sense of the madness of postwar Iraq.