Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and ... in jobs for which they lacked qualification.. [Mass Market Paperback]

Ray LeMoine (Author), Jeff Neumann (Author), Donovan Webster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2007

This all-access, inside-out view of what the American occupation of Iraq really looks like on the ground is the story of two young Americans who went to Baghdad without any real plan and discovered they weren't the only ones. Underqualified but ingenious, Ray and Jeff found work with the Coalition Provisional Authority providing humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people amid an appalling atmosphere of corruption, incompetence, and horror. Gritty and irreverent, this is a wild ride inside the Red Zone and a strikingly original portrait of the real Iraq.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

LeMoine and Jeff Neuman had it easy; instead of finishing college, they spent the summer months selling "Yankees Suck" -T-shirts outside Fenway Park and spent the rest of the year traveling the world. But when their beloved Red Sox lost the 2003 American League Championship to the Yankees in a do-or-die game-seven matchup, they decided not to go back to Boston and instead made the unlikely choice of traveling to Israel and then right into Baghdad, ground zero of the Iraq War. Going to Iraq with the intention of providing humanitarian aid in a war they did not support, they ended up working as volunteers for Paul Beemer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the agency that was supposed to provide interim command and support prior to establishing the new Iraqi government. The boys' position of being both outsiders and insiders provides a unique perspective on the war that is miles away from anything found through the "normal" news channels. It is a complex, harrowing, frustrating, and heartbreaking account of the American occupation in Iraq. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143038168
• ISBN-13: 978-0143038160
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #973,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real sleeper among Iraq books, November 23, 2006

By 

Richard A. Jenkins "Richard A. Jenkins" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and adventure in Iraq, (Hardcover)

I can't remember how this book was brought to my attention, but I am glad that it was. I took a break from "Cobra II", "Fiasco", and other "big books" about the war to get these guys' "off the beaten path" perspective. I'm a longtime independent traveler and, although Baghdad is not on my list of current destinations, I can readily understand how and why these guys blundered into Baghdad. The book is great fun because of the "slacker" attitude and the perspective that's outside the usual journalistic channels. My guess is that "the guys" had a lot of help writing this. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little embellishing, but I'd also guess that some of the wildest stories are the most credible.

Essentially, two professional screw-ups decided that their love of dangerous destinations warranted a trip to Baghdad. Despite the security measures in place there, the guys made it across the border and took up residence, initially outside the Green Zone. The book is full of soldiers of fortune, NGO workers, courageous Iraqis, and the mix of US military personnel, embassy types, military contractors, and journalists. The guys eventually wind up running a small aid operation as part of the effort to set up a viable NGO infrastructure in the country.

The book's strengths include its first hand descriptions of the Green Zone and non-Green Zone Baghdad, the guys' interactions with ordinary Iraqis and their perspectives on some of the "innovations" in Iraq (e.g., reliance on contractors, national guard, and Hertiage Foundations-connected interns). They also mention the little discussed problems of drug use among the military (and just about everyone else), particularly steroids, stimulants, and benzodiazepines. The book is unflattering in its description of the occupation administration and the military contractors (who operate in a legal grey zone) come off as arrogant and troublesome for the occupation, while the national guardsmen come off as dolts. Other books such as Crawford's "The Last True Story.." paint a different picture of guardsmen (Crawford was in the Army National Guard himself, and is one of the few accounts to talk about drug use among the military), but the view of the contractors seems consistent with other sources.

The book clearly goes for the absurd and other accounts would suggest that they probably had much from which to choose. Along the way, the guys befriend a variety of soldiers, embassy folks, NGO types (Iraqi and Western), and ordinary locals. They largely stumble into doing aid work and the lead author comes to enjoy it and develop some expertise. Along the way, friends die or slip into substance abuse or insanity, and the whole seen finally becomes too much. The book is a vivid adventure and great fun in places, although one never loses sight of where this all takes place. Even if you know that the war has become a "fiasco", that interns from the Heritage Foundation aren't the way to rebuild a country, and that Baghdad is a dangerous place, the book allows you to see these things from fresh perspectives. There's probably too much about the authors' previous lives in the early parts of the book, but otherwise, this is an adventure worth reading.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Irreverent, obnoxious, and accurate, July 7, 2007

By 

Neil Laslett (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and adventure in Iraq, (Hardcover)

These guys are over the top in every sense, but perhaps that's fitting for a war and occupation that somehow makes their antics seem quaint. Initially arriving in Baghdad as little more than idiotic war tourists, the intense reality of post-invasion Iraq quickly sinks into them, and they find themselves deeply and emotionally invested, while still remaining outsiders to the CPA (despite bunking in a hallway in the Palace).

Is this book well written? I don't know. It has a certain amateur rawness to it that is authentic, even unanalyzed, which is welcome relief from the many excellent but highly impersonal books by authors such as George Packer and Anthony Shadid that are not able to capture the day-to-day intensity the way these guys do.

I was in Iraq, working in the NGO sector, for over 4 months prior to their little adventures. While I wasn't a part of their Valium and pot subculture, their depiction of the general scene rings true. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in understanding what it really meant to be down in the trenches of post-war Iraq reconstruction in those early days when hope was still an option and tireless devotion was an emotional and moral imperative, no matter what your political views or position on the war.

Another reviewer wrote that "the narrative lacks content and purpose". Maybe that's exactly as it should be when describing an occupation that meets the same description.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I was impressed, April 7, 2007

By 

Rebecca Gormley (Dayton, OH United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and adventure in Iraq, (Hardcover)

I just finished this book and was impressed with these guys' observations and their obvious concern for the Iraqis' plight. They went there almost as a lark then couldn't avoid seeing the ramifications of the conflict. They did take the bull by the horns and did what they could to help, even though nothing anyone could do would be enough. They did seem like doofuses at times but I don't think that matters to the book. I didn't like all the drugs and alcohol and wonder how they survived, but still they seem to have meant well.