Customer Reviews

Dirty Work

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If you're prepared to step into a not-so-well-known zone of emotion, turmoil, introspection, strife, heartbreak, and seemingly infinite, dogged self-questioning, then this story may begin to have a lasting effect on you. It is a brief but powerful exploration into a tumultuous, emotional maelstrom about men who have been at war and live its most personal aftermaths. This novel absorbs you, and if you are so inclined, produces an empathetic connection with you that may take a while, if it ever does, for you to break.

Dirty Work is a glimpse at a pivotal moment in the lives of two men who are seemingly brought together for an important purpose. Both are victims of war through devastating wounds; physical, mental, and emotional; and are also victims of the aftermath of their recoveries. They each lived through their physical injuries but found, alas, that their survival placed them in another type of war; a war waged in the way that people react to them and in how they are expected to act around them.

Being from different races and backgrounds, the main characters, Braiden and Walter, irreparably scarred by the Vietnam conflict, are brought together in the confines of a veterans' hospital and are initially wary of each other. But as they soon discover very quickly through their stories to one another, quickly imparting emotional and unspoken understandings, they are bound to form a special bond for a special purpose.

The short time period covered in the "present" part of this story is told amidst non-stop, brief volleys of story swapping and philosophizing from Braiden and Walter. They speak of times when they were young, while in the war, about times after their war experiences, and about their present circumstances. Their exchanges are gripping, and you come to know each of these men at a level that gives you something akin to an emotional bond with them. They stay with you long after you close the back cover of the book.

Dirty Work is the captivating debut novel from the finest novelist of this generation. Hailed as a modern Johnny Got His Gun, it lives up to and, at times, surpasses such comparisons. Brown's creative way of alternating the perspective, chapter by chapter, between the two main characters works beautifully. It's a fast and compelling read. The dark clouds that permeate Brown's style of storytelling are devoid of silver linings. The emotional landscape is often more stark than the gloomy physical settings where his stories unfold. I have turned many people on to this gem and all have come away as loyal Larry Brown fans. I do not think it's possible to be disappointed with this novel. Dive in with absolute confidence that Mr. Brown will take you where you need to go! You will want more when you are finished.

I'm new to reviewing books on Amazon and have started out with reviews of my newest favorite author, Larry Brown. For great southern storytelling I love Brown's books "Fay", "Joe" and "Father and Son", and if you are a fan of any of those you probably love them for the same reason I do. But it's what is in "Dirty Work" that proves that Larry Brown was one of the very very best. I didn't know where I'd land once I started reading this book, but it took me to places that just astonished me. The narrative changes in its chapters never became stale or contrived and the development of the characters through thoughts and minimal expression is masterful. It's a powerful book.

Brown opens with a reference to "Johnny Get Your Gun," and the novel definitely contains parallels, but his pacing, characters and dialogue are far and away reason enough to pick this up. Like Thom Jones and Tim O'Brien, Brown elicits my great thanks and praises to both vets and the fact that I was born in 1972.

Sitting outside at a cafe in MA, I hear the guy next to me talk of Vietnam in terms that made it seem to have happened last week. It is difficult as a member of the generation growing up in the shadows of that war to understand the effects it had on the people who were there. Larry Brown brings that reality to light. He is frank and authoritative in his telling of two souls tortured by the physical and emotional hell they endured. I found myself moved by his accuracy in description of the south and the people who live there. You cannot read this book without relating the characters to people in your own life. I very much enjoyed this book. I recommend it to everyone interested in understanding the war.

I'm a stone sucker for gritty Vietnam tales and don't care whether they are fantasy or realism, as long as someone is holding in their innards with a sweaty bandanna or emptying their 60 into the trees. In this novel, Brown goes where other writers like Robert Stone, Thom Jones and Bill Shields also go; things get ugly, they go to hell through nobody's fault, luck and Jesus run out at the same time. On paper, the plot seems somewhat hackneyed - the short-fuse father who ends up in the Big House, the school bullies, the Vietnam ambush scenes, etc. But Brown makes it work. We want to know what both of the main characters are thinking. Even more interesting than any of this is the budding relationship between the protagonist and another wrecked soul who sells him the beer that blunts his pain. Although the early Cuckoo's Nest reference telegraphs the ending somewhat, this book reads quick and rough, like the first elementary school beating I ever took. Recommended.

I was assigned to read just one chapter of this book as part of an advanced high school English class. The teacher had used a marker to blot out all the curse words. That one chapter effected so many people in the class that, over the next few weeks, many of us went out and got the book. The characters were that rich and the plot was that compelling that it got high school kids to read it on their own! That was when I was 17. Now I give the book often as a gift to friends at Christmas. I am now a literature major at a major university and still regard this as simply one of the most powerful novels I have ever read and constantly enjoy returning to it.

This period of the south and the steamy afternoons of country drama play all the cards for Family, Patriotism, Race, Class and long forgotten prejudices. Joseph Wambaugh took the rural north for a journey and recently departed Larry Brown does the same for the northern reaches of Mississippi. Not an easy book to put down and not an easy set of emotions to find comfort in. Much like the works of author & Tennessee Sheriff David Hunter's works the less pleasant and the un-glossed image of the south remains.

To say "I am a Larry Brown fan" is an understatement. "Fay" was my first experience and I was hooked! Then the marvelous "Miracle of Catfish" and "Fathers and Sons"....but "Dirty Work" may just be my favorite. The power of these two characters and the way it builds to it's conclusion, well, it was like a punch to my heart! It's a "must read" for many reasons. One is to try to understand the effects of war, on body and soul, of those who go to war and return.
It's a short book but enormous in scope! The relationship and compassion these two men develope for each other is unforgettable. The sadness I feel, that Larry Brown is no longer here to continue to write and move us to our core, is huge. His writing is a true American treasure.

This book ranks with Tim O'Brien's _The Things They Carried_ as an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war. But like O'Brien's book, it's not specifically about the war itself; it's about the people who fought in it.
Brown's writing is unique: spare, direct, unflinching--while at the same time, insightful and emotional. He really has "the gift" of creating memorable characters. This book will stay with you long after you finish it. Brown is truly an original.