The Farther Shore (Milkweed National Fiction Prize) [Paperback]

Matthew Eck (Author)

Book Description

Series: Milkweed National Fiction Prize | Publication Date: October 1, 2008

In his unforgettable debut novel, Matthew Eck puts readers inside the mind of a confused young soldier caught in the fog of unexpected warfare. A small unit of soldiers from the U.S. Army is separated from their command and left for dead. Their only option is to keep moving, in hope that they’ll escape the marauding gangs and clansmen who appear to rule the city. Josh, a young soldier, and his “battle buddies” are left to wander in this hostile territory. A series of horrifying, often violent encounters leaves only a few of them alive. The Farther Shore is a short, stark war novel in which the characters are both haunting and inhuman, natives and invaders alike. The emerging story reflects a new kind of military engagement, with all the attendant horrors and difficulties of fighting in a strange new postmodern battlefield.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A unit of young American soldiers lost in an unnamed city in an unnamed desert nation struggle to maintain a tenuous grip on their lives in this haunting debut novel by Eck, a veteran of U.S. Army efforts in Somalia. Narrator Joshua Stantz recounts his wanderings with such quiet objectivity that the horrors he witnesses evoke winces and poetic details stand out in contrast: there are wounds that hiss and bubble, but there is also a girl's lone eyelash falling from the creases of a letter. Early in the book, Joshua is part of a group of six soldiers who, separated from their unit and under murky circumstances, kill two boys, but almost everything else about their circumstances remains unclear: where exactly are they and why? and who is the enemy? With these questions in the air, the formal rules of engagement become all but useless as the troops navigate a landscape rife with dangers—warring clans, armed thugs, the elements. Eck goes beyond the on-the-ground chaos of battle to capture the physical and psychological disorientation of modern war. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Three American soldiers are stranded in a war-blasted desert city in Africa. The heat, the sand, the impenetrable darkness are all exacting a toll. The enemy is everyone and anyone, even your comrades. The mission is vague, preposterous. The people are starving, desperate, and violent, tyrannized by warlords and clan loyalty. Packs of emaciated dogs roam through smoking ruins. All is obscured by haze, dust, and fear. Josh, a good boy from Wichita, Kansas, struggles to stay rational, vigilant, honorable. Santiago, their lieutenant, tells him, "Stop thinking so much." Their situation goes from bad to worse to all-out nightmare as they barely escape the city and set out for the sea. Every word in Eck's first novel is as solid as a stone. Every moment of crisis feels authentic in its terror and tragedy; indeed, Eck served as a soldier in Somalia at age 18. Heir to Hemingway, and damn near as powerful as Cormac McCarthy in The Road (2006), Eck has created a contemporary version of The Red Badge of Courage in this tale of one young man's trial by fire in the pandemonium of war in an age of high-tech weaponry and low-grade morality. Seaman, Donna --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; First Trade Paper Edition edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571310673
• ISBN-13: 978-1571310675
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The misery of war, October 8, 2007

By 

another reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Farther Shore (Hardcover)

Eck's book could stand as a parable for America's war in Iraq or any of our imperial wars that are fought faraway by a few men whose agonies civilians can never understand. A small group of soldiers cut off from their unit find that everything turns sour fast. Without malice and following standard operating procedures, they kill children who set off alarms by walking into their night position. More horrors follow. The men Eck depicts are neither good or bad: they do terrible things and terrible things are done to them because that is what happens in war.

In the area of operations Eck depicts, even nature is postindustrial, polluted, and hostile: "the ocean is out of tune." In this dismal setting that mirrors the soldiers' lives, Eck excels at depicting the fog of war where soldiers are lost, sick, and confused. Their actions are often dictated by chance in the midst of terrible situations. some die, others are mutilated, no one escapes intact.

The novel shows men at war without the Hollywood soundtrack or the happy ending of the movie version of Black Hawk Down, where the survivors walk into safety looking dewy fresh as if from a good night's sleep and having missed no good meals at the studio's buffet.

Even more than the novel's obvious applicability to America's hopeless mission in Iraq, this book stands on its own as a story of the misery of war. And these words apply to the experiences of Americans in many wars: ""We made a mess of this whole thing. And I'm sick with it."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dark Adventure, January 4, 2008

By 

Kevin Loss - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Farther Shore (Hardcover)

I sent my wife to buy the last Umberto Eco novel and she bought me this book by mistake. I read it cover to cover anyhow and it stuck in my head the next day because it was fantastic. The Farther Shore was a firecracker book, the kind that draws you in by getting your attention and never lets go. A perfect book. I would say more, but I don't want to hint away all of the good parts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Existential warfare, December 26, 2007

By 

Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Farther Shore (Hardcover)

The plot is simple; a small group of soldiers get separated from the rest of their unit in Somalia and need to find their way back. The opening is equally simple, and grabbed me from the get go.

"It was full dark, midnight, and heat like that should have disappeared. Then the bombing started. Those poor souls, the poor fucks of the city, had no idea we were watching from the rooftop of the tallest building in town, six sets of eyes in the night, calling in rounds from the circling AC-130 Spectres. When they fired too close to the city's edge we'd make a call for them to move further out, into the unknown. When they veered too far out over the desert, we made another call. It was a tightrope, a balancing act, a burden we adored. We were spotters on the roof, recon in a city controlled by warlords and their clans."

The main hero, Josh Stanz, doesn't think about the right or wrong of his actions - things that need to get done, do get done, and that's all there is to it. And, like Hemingway, Eck doesn't tell the reader either. It's up to the reader to decide. And, for this reader, the decision wasn't always very easy.

I found this book interesting, challenging, compelling -- and look forward to read more of Eck's work in the future.