The Human War [Paperback]

Noah Cicero (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Fiction. "A terse, polemical and often violent book that follows Mark, a disaffected American everyman, through the trailer parks, bedrooms, dive bars and strip joints of humdrum Youngstown, Ohio during the final two hours leading up to the dawn of America's supposed 'War on Terror.'... America's finest literary pariah? You bet"--Dazed & Confused. "This alarmingly well written book is a new voice that has rankled more than enough people back home in America. This vitriolic stance against Bush, God and War is just the book we should be reading in today's climate"--Scarecrow.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Noah Cicero lives in Ohio. His short stories have appeared in many magazines and webzines, including Reflections, The Surface, New Horizon, Brittle Star, Poindexter, AnotheRealm, Ygdrasil, Grundle Ink, Retort, Crimson Feet Connected, Jacob's Ladder, One Forty Two, Nth Position, Identity Theory, Newtopia, Subterranean Quarterly, Black Ice, and others. He also writes social commentary in collaboration with Oma Mullins.

Product Details

• Paperback: 142 pages
• Publisher: Fugue State Press (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879193116
• ISBN-13: 978-1879193116
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars White Trash Existentialism -- BRILLIANT, February 24, 2005

By 

Tim Hall (Jersey City, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Human War (Paperback)

Imagine if Sartre and de Beauvoir battled it out on The Jerry Springer Show, and you get an idea what reading this book is like. Noah Cicero is one of the most amazing voices in fiction I've ever discovered. Remember the first time you read Bukowski, Miller, or Ginsberg's HOWL? Reading this book was like that for me: it just riveted me to the back of my seat and made me shake my head in wonder.

Noah's great innovation is the "sentegraph": prose so clipped that each line becomes poetry; the perfect obverse of "vers libre" poets who simply write prose with irregular line breaks. Noah comes screaming from the rust belt hell of Youngstown, Ohio, but don't expect just another sad-sack, Harvey Pekar type of artist: Cicero is young, brilliant, fearless, and completely original. He hangs out in Denny's and goes to strip bars and, in this book--written on the eve of the Gulf War II--rages against war and politics and the horror and emptiness the eve of war has caused him.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I hope this has helped.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review by Sam Pink, April 23, 2011

By 

Sam Pink - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Human War (Paperback)

The Human War is a really good book. it is easy to read. it is funny and also insightful but never in a way that seems like the author is trying too hard. the book is about an individual's experience during the beginning of the war in iraq. probably my favorite thing about it, is that it doesn't try to define the war, or the situation or anything universal. the book examines one person's reaction, as he talks to other individuals. the end result is that nothing is determined, and each person must go on living as a single person, while things like war, absurdity, and interpersonal relationships threaten to discover the meaninglessness of life. i recommend this for fans of sartre, bukowski, and heidegger.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lindah Squeeze Me, January 28, 2009

By 

Lucas E. Wildner "Lulululuw" (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Human War (Paperback)

If you think sentences--single sentences. You know the type: unmarried, lonesome, etc-- describe a particular aspect of the core of your being, then you're in luck because Cicero delves right into the problem of trying to get you to disagree with yourself in that those sentences really hate you.