Missionaries

August 1, 2020
A host of journalists, mercenaries, soldiers, and well-meaning innocents are thrust into a quagmire in Colombia. Klay's first novel, the follow-up to Redeployment, his stellar 2014 story collection about U.S. soldiers in Iraq, gives his concerns about intractable violence a broader scope. Early on, he introduces characters in alternating chapters: Among them are Abel, a young foot soldier in the gruesome battles among drug cartels, soldiers, and guerrillas in northern Colombia circa 1999; Lisette, a jaded journalist covering the war in Afghanistan; Juan Pablo, a Colombian military officer hoping to shepherd his country to a deal ending decades of conflict; and Mason, a former medic in Afghanistan now serving as a Special Forces Liaison in Colombia. By 2016 these people's lives will intertwine, but not before Klay has gone deep into the violence and fogs of confusion they witness and sometimes create. In Colombia, Abel witnesses a defiant mayor get strapped to a piano and chainsawed in half; Mason hastily patches up the wounded in similarly visceral scenes. So it's clear things will be messy when Lisette requests to be transferred to "any wars right now where we're not losing" and is sent to Colombia. The challenge before any serious war novelist is to bring order to chaos without succumbing to a tidy narrative. It's to Klay's credit that he creates ambiguity not through atmospheric language or irony (Redeployment had its share of Heller-esque gallows humor) but through careful psychological portraits that reveal how readily relationships grow complicated and how even good intentions come undone in the face of humanity's urge to violence. That means plotlines get convoluted in the late stages, but the dispiriting conclusion is crystal clear: It's not just that war is hell, but that war brings hellishness to everything. An unflinching and engrossing exploration of violence's agonizing persistence.

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Starred review from August 1, 2020
National Book Award-winner Klay (Redeployment, 2014) displays his signature virtuosity in this richly textured, masterful mosaic of modern Colombia. A small village serves as both backdrop and microcosm of the country's ongoing turmoil. The struggle for survival is deftly juxtaposed with the struggle for power, and the varying gradations of each are explored through multiple perspectives with nuance, grace, and poignancy. Abel, a young boy who joins the revolutionary group that slaughtered his family, is recognized for his intelligence and quickly rises through the ranks. American journalist Lisette is burned out from covering war in the Middle East and asks to be reassigned to a good war in Colombia. Colonel Juan Pablo is a high-ranking government functionary whose daughter is enamored of Che Guevara. Each character is rendered in psychologically astute moral complexity and must interrogate his or her own complicity in a corrupt and often violent system. Ultimately, all are pawns in the chess match of deep-state machinations masquerading as diplomacy. As the characters' lives begin to intersect in a rewarding, yet tension-filled denouement, the author's prodigious skill and deep understanding of the region provide the scaffolding to explore essential questions of human dignity and sacrifice. A triumphant achievement that elevates Klay to the top echelon of contemporary writers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

August 17, 2020
Klay’s ambitious debut novel (after the National Book Award–winning collection Redeployment) plunges the reader into war-torn Colombia, where allegiances are uncertain and tremendous violence is an everyday reality. The story follows the four characters: there is Abelito, a Colombian forcibly conscripted into a militia commanded by the infamous terrorist Jefferson, and who hopes to save the woman he loves from his murderous commandants. American journalist Lisette Marigny, meanwhile, is embedded in Afghanistan until she is dispatched to Bógota to report on gang activity, only to be kidnapped by guerrillas. En route from the Middle East is Mason, an Iraq War veteran and Special Forces medic reassigned to fight paramilitary narcos in Colombia, which he naively imagines will be a “good war.” He befriends Juan Pablo, a weary commando who frets at being little more than a common mercenary and reflects on his early ambition to join the priesthood. Through these four protagonists, Klay unravels the complexity of interventionist American operations abroad, from Kabul to Medellín. While the novel suffers from a surfeit of tedious subplots and can feel overwhelmed by Klay’s exhaustive research, the prose is consistently staggering, whether in the characters’ moments of self-reflection or unflinching descriptions of brutality (“A chainsaw appeared, and suddenly everyone who had watched, confused and amazed... knew what was about to happen”). Even though the whole thing doesn’t quite tie together, it’s quite a ride. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME.

October 16, 2020

DEBUT NOVEL Missionary is defined broadly as one with a mission, and the missionaries in Klay's debut novel (after the National Book Award--winning short story collection Redeployment) converge in service of their various missions amid Colombia's violent narcopoliticalalchemy. The result is a driving narrative that is hard to put down. While the plot is more than compelling, characterization is the novel's strength. Klay spends roughly three-fourths of the book patiently fleshing out his "missionaries," making them worthy of our concern. They have families. They have psychologies. They have closely held principles that motivate them. Lisette, a young, passionate war correspondent, is kidnapped by a shadowy faction, one of many such factions roiling in Colombia's byzantine narcotics chaos. Immediately, the ironically named Jefferson, a drug lord and petty tyrant, physically grotesque, brutish, but with an unlikely and mercurial streak of compassion, is suspected. Colombian special forces commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pulido and aided by U.S. Army Sergeant Major Baumerlaunch a risky rescue attempt in which not always the right people are killed. VERDICT Incredibly detailed, based on research and the author's personal experience, this work rises above the level of generic action-thriller to that of literary art, joining such geopolitical forebears as VassilisVassilikos's Z and John le Carr�'s The Mission Song.--Michael Russo, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge

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