Fobbit [Paperback]

David Abrams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2012

Fobbit \’fä-bit\, noun. Definition: A U.S. soldier stationed at a Forward Operating Base who avoids combat by remaining at the base, esp. during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2011). Pejorative.

In the satirical tradition of Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Fobbit takes us into the chaotic world of Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Triumph. The Forward Operating base, or FOB, is like the back-office of the battlefield – where people eat and sleep, and where a lot of soldiers have what looks suspiciously like a desk job. Male and female soldiers are trying to find an empty Porta Potty in which to get acquainted, grunts are playing Xbox and watching NASCAR between missions, and a lot of the senior staff are more concerned about getting to the chow hall in time for the Friday night all-you-can-eat seafood special than worrying about little things like military strategy.

Darkly humorous and based on the author's own experiences in Iraq, Fobbit is a fantastic debut that shows us a behind-the-scenes portrait of the real Iraq war.

Editorial Reviews

Review

—A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
—One of Amazon's Top 100 Books of 2012 (#49)
—One of Barnes and Noble's Best Books of 2012
—St Louis Post-Dispatch 50 Favorite Books of 2012
—Paste Magazine Best Books of 2012
—January Magazine Best Books of 2012
—A B&N Discover Great New Writers Selection
—One of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Literary Fiction picks for the Fall
—Finalist for Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
—2012 Montana Book Award Honor Book
—Millions Notables of 2012
—An American Booksellers Association IndieNext Pick
—One of Kirkus Reviews’s “10 Great Books That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud”
—Daily Beast’s 2012 Best Books on Today’s Wars by Veterans
—Library Journal: Fabulous Fall Firsts of 2012

“A retired veteran whose 20-year career in the Army included a 2005 tour in Baghdad, Abrams is comfortable and convincing locating the action in Iraq. . . . Fobbit is a vicious skewering of this surprisingly large military subculture of war avoidance.”—TIME

“I applaud David Abrams for sticking to his vision and writing the satire he wanted to write instead of adding to the crowded shelf of war memoirs. In Fobbit, he has written a very funny book, as funny, disturbing, heartbreaking and ridiculous as war itself.”—New York Times Book Review

“Fobbit blends fiction and journalism, an apt reflection of literary influences combined with [Abrams’s] experience in an Army public affairs team. . . . Though absurd, these Dickensian characters are all so skillfully wrought that we quickly accept their idiosyncrasies. . . . What’s most intriguing about this work is that, at its center, it is both a clever study in anxiety and an unsettling expose of how the military tells its truths. Fobbit traces how “the Army story” is crafted, the dead washed of their blood, words scrutinized, and success applied to disasters.”—The Washington Post

“An impressive Iraq war satire. . . .[Abrams has] a genuine sense of humor . . . and a productive sense of irony to go with it. Fobbit is an impressive debut and holds out promise for more good things to come.”—Los Angeles Times

“Fobbit seems less interested in what Iraq was like than in where it went wrong. . . . Abrams wants to reveal the comedy and absurdity of these cubicled soldiers - and, through them, of the entire conflict. . . . when it comes to war literature, a comic novel will always do a better job with the big picture. This is the first thing to take from Fobbit.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A harrowing satire of the Iraq War and an instant classic. . . . Abrams’s prose is spot-on and often deadpan funny . . . This novel nails the comedy and the pathos, the boredom and the dread, crafting the Iraq War’s answer to Catch-22.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Using diaries he kept as a public affairs man in Iraq in 2005, Abrams makes comedy from the clash between positive spin and personal terror."—Men's Journal

“A satire of comfortably numb life during wartime. . . . Abrams spent 20 years in the Army, including a tour of Iraq, and he merely has to lightly fictionalize his observations to point out the absurdities of American occupation.”—Newsweek

“[Fobbit] gives such full-blooded life to the soldiers whose “pale, gooey center” is so antithetical to battlefield heroism that he propels the word into the everyday by the force of his narrative. . . . As mission builds upon mission, lie upon lie, Fobbit builds to its exclamation by terror and by tedium and by laughter. . . . Fobbit makes a sordid music of screams – and makes its mark on Iraq war literature.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Fobbit is hilarious, but the subject matter is deadly serious. This is a remarkable book because it was written by a man who served as a member of an army public relations team in Iraq, i.e. a fobbit himself. It is the rare writer–indeed, the rare person–who can step outside of himself and see with cold clarity the humor and pathos of his situation and then bring the reader to the same understanding. David Abrams is such a writer.”—Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War

"Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. It deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war."—Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here

"This delightful, readable, believable and useful book made me furious!"—Tom McGuane

“Fobbit, an Iraq-war comedy, is that rarest of good things: the book you least expect, and most want. It is everything that terrible conflict was not: beautifully planned and perfectly executed; funny and smart and lyrical; a triumph. This debut marks the arrival of a massive talent.”—Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life

“[Fobbit] is] like an Office-style satire that happens to be set on a military base in an active war zone. Its villains aren't suicide bombers but hectoring senior officers who make impossible demands.”—Slate.com

“You might not expect an Iraq War novel to be funny, but I laughed—more than once—as I read this one. I cringed, too. There’s simply so much to this book.” —Fiction Writers Review

“Fobbit is a tale of the Iraq war that manages to be as dark as it is funny, which is to say considerably. . . .[Abrams has] written a book that makes you laugh and makes you wince, often at the same time, all the while staying true to its message: that people are foolish on many levels, sometimes fatally so, but they are all motivated by the same basic needs, desires, and fears. . . . There are no heroes here, but no villains either. Each character fights his own war, and nobody wins.”—The Millions

"Truly significant . . . a book about the absurdity of the way the war is fought, the way the war is projected back home, and the massive gulf between the two. . . . a cynical satire in the same vein as the best works of legendary wartime authors like Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, Kurt Vonnegut, and especially Joseph Heller. Like those authors, Abrams’ book is important for reasons beyond his genre or categorization as well. Perhaps most important, though, is the fact that he challenges Paul Fussell’s argument that the real war cannot be effectively presented in novels."—The Rumpus

“The insanity is linguistic, and Abrams’s dark humor about lying through language would appeal to George Orwell. . . . He is not mocking soldiers. His targets are stateside, residing in naïve government or civilian expectations about ground conditions in Baghdad (and elsewhere) two years after Saddam’s overthrow. . . . Fobbit invites us to laugh over our collective foolishness—foolishness that sometimes includes deaths. That’s the toughest, most painful laughter of all.”—Great Falls Tribune

“The author describes Fobbit as an ‘anti-stupidity’ novel, not an anti-war novel, and with 20 years’ service he has the evidence and flair to write the former. . . . Fobbit is bliss.”—Military Times

“Abrams shows these men and women in their natural habitats, stuck somewhere halfway between the actual violence of war and the goofy excess of American culture.”—Book Riot

“Abrams’s tale is powerful stuff.”—Shelf Awareness

“A unique behind-the-wire glimpse at life in the FOB and the process of “spinning” a war for public consumption. A funny, hard-edged satire about recent history and modern war-making.”—Library Journal

“Sardonic and poignant. Funny and bitter. Ribald and profane.”—Kirkus Reviews

“If Vonnegut and Heller were the undisputed chroniclers of the madness of World War II, Abrams should be considered the resounding new voice of the Iraq War.”—Montana Standard

“Fobbit deserves a wide non-military audience. . . . Abrams, an Iraq war veteran himself, is able to portray not just the pointlessness and stupidity of the occupation but also its absurdity. . . . Fobbit is two things in one – a scathing, deeply felt diatribe against military disasters large and small, and an often-hilarious examination of very human, very weak characters living next door to a combat zone. The good news is that you only have to buy one copy, and you should waste no time in doing so.”—Bookreporter.com

“Abrams has a definite comic talent and a lively turn of phrase. The set-pieces are well done . . . and the dialogue zings back and forth cheerily enough. Abrams is a good writer, in other words. . . . Much of the most interesting material in Fobbit is the stuff that reads like reportage or memoir.”—The Guardian

“Fobbit is a searing view of life on a Forward Operating Base in Iraq and the constant contradictions faced by U.S. soldiers who are told to kick down a door one minute and win ‘hearts and minds’ the next. Funny and evocative, with great glimpses of soldier-speak and deployment day to day life, each laugh in the novel is accompanied with a troubling insight into ...

About the Author

David Abrams served in the U.S. Army for twenty years, and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as part of a public affairs team. He was named the Department of Defense's Military Journalist of the Year in 1994 and received several other military commendations. His stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, and other literary magazines. He lives in Butte, Montana.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat; Original edition (September 4, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780802120328
• ISBN-13: 978-0802120328
• ASIN: 0802120326
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (97 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of "Fobbit" (Grove/Atlantic), a comedy about the Iraq War. "Fobbit" was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, a Montana Honor Book, and a finalist in the L. A. Times' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. It was also selected as a "best" or "favorite" book of 2012 by Paste Magazine, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and January Magazine.

My short stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, Salon, Electric Literature, Salamander, Connecticut Review, The Greensboro Review, The Literarian, The Missouri Review, and other literary quarterlies. I regularly blog about the literary life at The Quivering Pen

I retired in 2008 after a 20-year career in the active-duty Army as a journalist. I was named the Department of Defense's Military Journalist of the Year in 1994 and received several other military commendations throughout my career. My tours of duty took me to Thailand, Japan, the Comoros Islands, Alaska, Texas, Georgia and The Pentagon (where my office was located at exactly the "ground zero" of 9/11--though I didn't start working there until 2006). In 2005, I joined the 3rd Infantry Division and deployed to Baghdad in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The journal I kept during that year formed the blueprint for the novel which would later become known as "Fobbit."

I was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Jackson, Wyoming. I earned a BA in English from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. I now live in Butte, Montana with my wife. I'm working on a draft of my next novel, a screwball comedy about a stuntman in 1940s-era Hollywood.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The truest war stories are the ones called fiction July 29, 2012

By Nathan Webster TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Author David Abrams is a retired Army journalist, my same job when I was active duty many years ago (in fact, Abrams and I were junior enlisted soldiers at the same time, though we never knew each other). As the command's mouthpieces, PAO types were usually treated a little better, with - not more respect - but a slight deference, since it was up to us to get the 'good news' out. The job also meant we saw everything at a higher level than most junior soldiers, but with limited independence to be entirely honest about it. That cynical perspective has accurately found its way into the pages of "Fobbit."

Abrams work tackles many of the Iraq War's absurd contradictions, some of which I witnessed as an embedded journalist. My opinion, both as a veteran and objective journalist, is that Abrams accurately reflects the Iraq War's humor, bitterness and disarray - this is not simply a "war novel," but an "Iraq" novel.

His book represents this clear place and specific time, and I think that's why this story will be a lasting literary contribution. This is what it was, fiction or not. You'll laugh because it's funny; you should weep because it's true.

I'm not sure any previous US conflicts ever had something as surreal as the "FOBs" - the cities-within-cities populated by headquarters elements where much of the book's action takes place. The residents had important jobs to do, but there's no question that a year's deployment at a base where you could play basketball tournaments, watch big-screen movies and eat pecan pie every night would seem an odd switch from the violence and death happening right outside the well-protected gates.

"Fobbit" follows a half-dozen characters that represent a cross-section of Army soldiers, including a battalion commander, company commander, infantry squad leader, public affairs officer, and public affairs NCO. Each meet different fates, both figurative and literal.

Abrams uses multiple points-of-view, and it's impressive how the 'voice' of each character feels unique and individual. He perfectly captures a wartime soldier's enthusiastic cynicism and gleeful bitterness.

The NCO, Chance Gooding, is surely based a little on Abrams himself - and he does the right thing by never making this character any sort of hero. He's pathetic - which is why an audience can connect with him. Abrams makes 'himself' the butt of as many jokes as his other characters. By a wide margin, the infantryman comes across the best.

The most interesting aspect is the unrelenting grind that Abrams' characters experience. As I read, I didn't care what they were doing, as much as what they were thinking, fictionally, on the page. A reader will get a small appreciation for how unrewarding and depressing - but bitterly funny - an Iraq deployment could be.

Because the characters are SO important, and SO vital, it makes the conclusion the weakest part. The story wraps up in a way that puts plot to the forefront, and I cared a lot more about the characters then the plot. Plus, a couple parts strain believability; since the first 300 pages were completely spot-on accurate, it was a bit jarring. Bottom line, this is the kind of story that didn't need to be "concluded" with a conventional wrap-up. It was Abrams hysterical character development that carried the narrative along.

I hope some readers are offended, and complain about Abrams obvious lack of patriotism, his attack on our beloved soldiers, and his mockery of our national war effort - if that happens, then he has succeeded. A book like this proves its value in the irrational criticism that it generates. Anyone who gets angry and says Abrams got it wrong either wasn't there, didn't serve, doesn't know - or maybe Abrams' characters simply hit way too close to home (but those people are unlikely to seek out challenging fiction anyway).

Like the line from Mel Brooks' "The Producers" goes, "It was shocking, outrageous, insulting...and I loved every minute of it!"

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Wars are nothing, in the end, but stories." July 29, 2012

By Evelyn Getchell TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

My dear reading friend, are you ready...
-for comic absurdity from the war in Iraq?
-for some bitter military humor?
-for edgy jabs at the fraud of our military intervention in the Middle East?
-for razor sharp critique of the bureaucratic operation?
-for sarcastic snipes at the facades of patriotism and honor?
-for witty war zone psychology?
-for honest moral-social dilemmas?
-for the real human drama and ugly pathos of war that are brought alive through an author's personal war experiences?
If you are indeed ready then reach no further than David Abrams' hilarious, satirizing, instructing, upsetting, disquieting, enraging, intelligent, poignant Fobbit.

Abrams' story is important to be told and now is the important time for it to be told.

FOBBIT cleverly contains allusions to CATCH-22, and just as Joseph Heller drew critics who at the time believed CATCH-22 to be a demoralizing piece of fiction that compromised the integrity of the US military, so might Abrams for this bitingly satirical but deeply affecting story of survival in a war zone during an absurdly tragic-comic war.

Abrams' FOBBIT, which hurls the reader into his own personal experiences while he served in Iraq as part of the U. S. Army's public affairs team, is much more than an anti-war screed. It is at once hilariously funny and sadly moving. Some stories, like this one, need to be told - not simply because they will entertain or enlighten the reader - but because they really happened!

Abrams brilliantly inserts a very telling line from DON QUIXOTE in his narrative - that "Fictional tales are better and more enjoyable the nearer they approach the truth or the semblance of truth." It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction and Abrams fuses both into a fluid storyline that brings truth and reality to the foreground when needed, and keeps it understated and subtle in the background when it is not.

The cast of characters in FOBBIT is really what give this intense story its muscle and teeth. The main character, Staff Sergeant Chance Gooding, who works in the public affairs office Forward Operating Base (FOB) Triumph sending out desensitized and manipulated press releases about Iraq war activities for the American public back home, for the most part has, like his fellow "Fobbits" during Operation Iraqi Freedom, constructed a safe routine for himself which insulates him from the dangers of the actual war raging outside the safety of the FOB. His survival technique leads to some truly hilarious moments of lunacy and esprit de corps, but also some sharp-edged turns of irrational inhumanity and the insanity of war.

Abrams is able to reveal his personal viewpoint about the war he experienced through his fictional Chance Gooding and a lively roster of strangely engaging characters, some stranger and even more bizarre than the one before, who set the perfect stage for delivering concepts of philosophy and reasoning concerning not only the war but personal integrity, duty, honor, heroism, patriotism, bravado, cowardice, and the inefficiency of bureaucracy.

As the story progresses on its narrative arc from slapstick fun and humor to brutal irrationality and cruelty, the reader begins to feel embedded in a very real story of very real people. The reader is made witness to the real bare bones and hemorrhaging blood of fear, terrorism, war and death. Ultimately it is Gooding's personal quest to stay alive in a war zone that writes the final words on the absurdity of war, the inevitability of death, and imperiled sanity in the face of madness.

FOBBIT is an exceptional testament about the modern-day war zone, one I expect will soon be considered essential reading alongside CATCH-22 or SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE. Yes, dear reader, if you are ready...you must read Fobbit!

"Wars are nothing, in the end, but stories."
-Frederick Busch
(From the epigraph of FOBBIT)

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Courage and Moral Fortitude Are Needed, Spinelessness Abounds July 25, 2012

By M. JEFFREY MCMAHON TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

David Abrams spent twenty years in the military and was in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He uses his experience to show a dark side of that war that we were never supposed to see in his novel Fobbit, which is a literary masterpiece for many reasons. First, you forget you're reading literature of the highest order because Abrams, using pungent, concise, concrete language, ushers you into the complex, in turns hilarious and infuriating world of American Fobbits, military and service people stationed in Iraq who avoid "combat by remaining at the base, esp. during Operation Iraqi Freedom." As Abrams describes it in perfect prose: "They were Fobbits because, at the core, they were nothing but marshmallow. Crack open their chests and in the space where their hearts should be beating with a warrior's courage and selfless regard, you'd find a pale, gooey center."

The spineless characters who populate this book will enrage and infuriate the reader as they scan the internet for engagement rings, eat Hostess Ding Dongs and look for clandestine places to fornicate as the real soldiers are dying horrible deaths from IEDs.

Second, the book succeeds at a purely entertainment level reminding me of a Christopher Guest mockumentary. The plot juxtaposes the agony of the real war outside the gates and the banality and cowardice of those bathing in the comforts within the compound.

Third, Fobbit is a morally necessary book that takes a critical look at war and the way politicians spin the war to make it palatable for American citizens. As such, Fobbit is a moral, anti-BS book and Fobbit fills the bill to the a T. One of its major themes is how public relations director Chance Gooding Jr. spends his time cowering in his cubicle writing war propaganda while deep down loathing himself and the operation he claims to champion. Abrams describes Gooding as a well insulated coward: "With his neat-pressed uniform, his lavender-vanilla body wash, and the dust collected around the barrel of his M16 rifle, he was the poster child for the stay-back-stay-safe soldier. The smell of something sweet radiated off his skin--as if he bathed in gingerbread." I was spellbound by these nuggets of perfectly crafted, scornful, at times sarcastic description that fill this novel and show the narrator's contempt for bull****. In fact, as I read this novel I kept thinking of a slim best-selling nonfiction book by philosopher Harry Frankfurt called On Bull****.

Fobbit is a great companion piece to a book about the way we become numb to all the bull that inundates us everyday. Fobbit is a novel that cuts through the bull that neatly and sweetly packages absurd, hypocritical, often morally bankrupt wars and it is done in a way that is not preachy. This novel is real, concrete, and has the power of someone who has been there, in the deepest recesses, and has survived to tell us the true tale.