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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sobering Perspective on the War in Iraq, June 26, 2007
I enjoy well-written war novels. I thought this book was going to be a novel about the war in Iraq. This book is about the war in Iraq, but from a very unique perspective because the principal character in the book, Jimmy Stephens, only sees the edges of the war. Sometimes the edges are enough - or even too much.
Jimmy Stephens would easily get the vote for "least likely to go off to war." Jimmy is a gossip columnist. He deals in the sordid underbelly of the rich and famous. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he mistakes someone for a sleazy star just at the moment when his newspaper is retooling itself for hard news. Jimmy finds that he can either go to Iraq to cover the impending invasion, or he can find another job.
Jimmy is woefully unprepared for life in the desert with U.S. Marines. Jimmy quickly finds that life away from cities, air conditioning, fancy restaurants, toilets and showers is unpleasant. Jimmy also comes to respect, and perhaps even love, the Marines he accompanies into Iraq. As a war veteran will tell you, sometimes getting too close to people in a war can only cause pain.
I found the story of Jimmy Stephens fascinating and familiar. Civilians may find portions of Jimmy's story incomprehensible. Former veterans and people familiar with military operations in the Third World will find humor in Jimmy's naiveté, but they will also remember when they too were new to operations in harsh environments.
Jimmy's story is funny in a lot of places, but his story is also poignant. The humor in this story is inspired by the absurdity and irony of freeing a country without a follow-up plan, and then allowing its citizens to kill each other. The poignancy comes when Jimmy has finally acclimated to being in war. Jimmy faces the harshest, cruelest tests, and with his acquired numbness is the realization that, as Thomas Wolfe said, you can never go home again.
Sometimes the harshest realities of war are not the battles. Sometimes the harshest realities of war occur on the fringes of the action. If you have been in combat, this book will tell you what you already know. If you want to know what it feels like to be involved in a war, but not on the front lines, I am unable to recommend a better book than this one. This book begs for clichés; thought-provoking, poignant, ironic, often funny, and inspired by real life. None of these fancy phrases will prepare you for this book.
One cliché that is quite appropriate for this book, though I usually loathe using it: must read. Even if you are uninterested in war and combat, perhaps you should still read this book to understand what it is like, and most especially what the war in Iraq is like. This book may give you a perspective that you never knew could exist. I have been in foreign countries, both in the military and as a civilian. Nicholas Kulish captured the feeling of being in a foreign land with people out to kill you well; almost too well.
Either I have captured your interest in this book, or I have not. I read over my review and realized that I could never adequately capture the feeling of this book. You have to read it. Before you vote in another presidential election, please read this book. Your perspective on the world and life may be a bit different.
Because this book is excellent, I would normally end this review with a single word, "enjoy". However, this book, as funny as it is, has an ending that is too sober for this word; this word is unseemly given the circumstances and message in this book. I enjoyed "Last One In" and I recommend it more than any book I have ever recommended on Amazon to date.
This review is based on a copy of the book provided to me by the author.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this book. Loved it loved it loved it., June 27, 2007
Nicholas Kulish, Last One In (Ecco, 2007)
Walk into any major chain bookstore and stand in a random spot. Look around, all the way around, slowly. You can't throw a penny without hitting something having to do with the Iraq War, can you? It's the flavor of the week. How do you distinguish between the Iraq War books worth reading and those that aren't? While it would be perfectly understandable if you answered the question "avoid them all"--most of them inhabit that vast range that lies between "dull" and "boring"--if you actually did so, you'd miss out on the smattering of Iraq War books that are actually good. A select few of them, in fact, are very good. Last One In is very good, though Last One In would be good were it about the Iraq War, the Peloponnesian War, or a couple of drunk guys going at it in the alley after closing time at your local five-cent-beer dive. And this despite the sinking feeling in my gut when I realized that a guy who was an embedded reporter in Iraq in 2003 was writing a book about a guy who's an embedded reporter in Iraq in 2003. That way, ninety-nine percent of the time, lies madness.
Kulish, however, is either the last of a dying breed or the first of a new guard. (I dearly hope it is the latter.) Said breed are distinguished by one single characteristic--the unwillingness to use emotional shortcuts in their writing. Kulish's novel is about said embedded journalist going through a kind of initiation, a coming of age, if you will, despite him being older than everyone around him except the other journalists. In other words, the entire novel turns on how Jerry (the journalist)'s relationship builds with the Marines to whom he is assigned. If that mechanism fails, the entire book is bound for the open window and the wide, wide swath of air between it and the ground. It does not fail, however. And because it does not fail, when we get to the big climax, which we know is coming, said climax works. And works very, very well, because we not only have a feeling for these characters, but we have a feeling for the way the characters feel for one another. And it's not a romance-novel feeling, either, where you read about one long stare and you know that's supposed to tell you that character A has strong feelings for character B (this is what I was referring to above as "emotional shortcuts"). We have that feeling because Kulish has spent the past two hundred-odd pages showing us how these characters interact, showing us the way their friendships deepen, and actually does the work. If I haven't made it clear enough, that's an exceptionally rare thing today in any medium.
I would call this the best war novel I've read since The Thin Red Line, but in all honesty, I read very few war novels. So while that's true, it would be damning the book with faint praise, and that is something I have no desire to do. Last One In is an excellent book. It is a war novel only in the sense of its background; it is really about the relationships, the bonds that form between men. (This is probably in no small part why the cover is blurbed by Arthur Phillips instead of, say, Tom Clancy.) So even if you're not a fan of war novels, I recommend this highly; if you are, you'll find something you probably haven't come across in a while--a war novel that's actually about the fighting guys, not the heavy artillery. Read this. **** ½
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mistaken identity to maturity, July 19, 2007
Jimmy Stephens [aka "James Stephens"] is a celebrity reporter. As such, he frequents night clubs, fashionable pubs, good restaurants. He dresses and eats well, drinks to satisfaction and encounters a wide variety of people. He listens well, as a reporter must, and conveys his experiences through his newspaper, the New York Daily Herald. Mistakes don't concern Jimmy much, until one confronts him with a serious choice - lose his job, or possibly lose his life. The result of that decision lead to this interesting tale of a man out of place. Jimmy is sent to the Middle East to become a war correspondent.
His entry to events is Kuwait City, where he learns of all the ways he might die. He meets his photographer, Becky Hardin, who seems to have a handle on all the requirements. She knows the equipment and the people Jimmy doesn't, and his struggles to keep up are typical of the novice. The other correspondents all seem to be veterans. Because he's bearing a false identity, they expect him to act as they do. Supremely confident officers don't leave him comfortable with his chances of survival. Finally, overloaded with luggage and equipment, he meets the Marines he's "embedded" with. They are naturally hostile - he's an outsider, clearly not "one of us". He ingratiates himself with them as best he can, but it's a tenuous relationship.
The "war" starts slowly. "Did we invade, or just move forward?", he asks frequently. But they are no more informed than he. Sargeant Harper, a worldly man, tolerates Jimmy's inexperience equitably. He has more on his mind than the problems of a novice correspondent. One by one, the Humvee team accepts Jimmy in their individual ways. Ramos, the youngest, is the victim of endless teasing. He's the most aggressive, impatient for combat. Corporal Dabrowski, in line with his rank, is more serious, while Martinez appears the oldest among them. They give him trials, which he meets, not without some difficulty.
The road to Baghdad is hot, dusty, confusing and, ultimately, dangerous. Jimmy's fears come to the fore and he questions the wisdom of continuing. He manages to become lost in the combat zone, an action lacking recommendation. Ultimately, the Humvee team enters the city. Jimmy's acceptance is enhanced by his offering his laptop and satellite 'phone link for the Marines to call home. It's an almost peaceful interlude after Jimmy's bearing so many fears. Yet, there is always tragedy in war, and for Jimmy, Iraq is no exception. He has spent no time pondering the justice of this invasion, only the events within his ken. Those are important enough for him. He leaves Iraq a far different man than the celebrity reporter chasing starlets in fashionable New York. Kulish's tale is engagingly written in a highly personalised manner. It only makes one wonder what he endured as an embedded reporter himself. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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