my life as a foreign country by brian turner

It haunts us, too, with the knowledge it imparts-and then mocks our attempts to claim that we can ever fully understand that knowledge. And Turner looks, brilliantly.-Jen Percy New York Times Book Review ne of the most important memoirs to come out of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Turners choice to approach his own story in a way that transcends political narratives, transcends his war, and even transcends himself, makes his memoir exceptional.-Caleb Cage The Rumpus A book about these haunted countries and cities, about the haunted past and a haunted man. Review Quotes praiseworthy example of how the empathetic imagination can function beautifully in nonfiction writing.Turner has a talent for amalgamating disparate experiences, especially between civilian and soldier, but also between history and the present.History can only be served by this kind of attention. Book Synopsis An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as Sergeant Turner with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family-and even those of the enemy-in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty. Through it all, he paints a devastating portrait of what it means to be a soldier and a human being.-Provided by publisher.

Turner also offers something that is truly rare in a memoir of violent conflict-he sees through the eyes of the enemy, imagining his way into the experience of the other. Across time, he seeks parallels in the histories of others who have gone to war, especially his taciturn grandfather (World War II), father (Cold War), and uncle (Vietnam). Free of self-indulgence or self-glorification, his account combines recollection with the imaginations efforts to make reality comprehensible.

In this breathtaking memoir, award-winning poet Brian Turner retraces his war experience-pre-deployment to combat zone, homing to aftermath. Now he lies awake each night beside his sleeping wife, imagining himself as a drone aircraft, hovering over the terrains of Bosnia and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe. In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner crossed the line of departure with a convoy of soldiers headed into the Iraqi desert. About the Book A war memoir of unusual literary beauty and power from the acclaimed poet who wrote the poem The Hurt Locker.

My life as a foreign country by brian turner