Description: In this generation's The Things They Carried three Oregon authors and combat veterans, Sean Davis, Matthew Robinson and Jacob Meeks, offer anatomies of war and of peace.
Brief description: Sean Davis, author of The Wax Bullet War, and contributor to The Misfit Manifesto, is a Purple Heart Iraq War veteran, winner of the 2015 Legionaire of the Year Award from the American Legion, & recipient of the 2016 Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award. His stories, essays, & journalism have appeared in the Ted Talk Book The Misfit's Manifesto (Simon & Schuster), Forest Ave. Press anthol. City of Weird, Sixty Minutes, Story Corps, Gobshite Quarterly, Flaunt Magazine, Human the movie, The Big Smoke. Among other things, he is the former commander of American Legion Post 134, Portland Oregon; a seasonal firefighter for the US Forest Service; and was a Portland Oregon mayoral candidate in 2016 His book Wildland Firefighting in Oregon: A History will be released by the History Press in Feb., 2019. Earlier versions of some Sean Davis pces. in this collection have appeared in Gobshite Quarterly, The Big Smoke, The Goodmen Proj., War Stories anthol., Perceptions, and The Talking River Lit. Magazine. Sean's story, Being the True Story About the Time I Waterboarded People in Portland, Oregon, for Blackwater, was shortlisted for The Iowa Review's 2018 Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans contest.
Review Quotes:
Praise for Matthew Robinson:
"Bold and radiant and spare, The Horse Latitudes con-fronts the question of how to tell a true war story-- and the results are breath-taking"
-- Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
"Robinson's clear-eyed account of a band of young soldiers stationed in Iraq is remorseless yet compassionate, bone-dry yet fierce as the desert winds. Their voices linger long after the book is closed: you will not forget them."
-- Diane Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise, and Life Without a Recipe
Praise for Sean Davis:
"Sean Davis has opened up the soldier's story wide enough for all of our humanity to emerge--messy, beautiful, chaotic, tender, violent, loving. The territory between soldier and artist is breath-taking."
-- Lidia Yuknavitch author of The Misfit's Manifesto, and Book of Joan
"The Wax-Bullet War will break your heart and blow your mind. With muscular prose and a big bruised heart, Sean Davis fearlessly chronicles his time fighting overseas and negotiating the battleground at home. An important book."
-- Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon