Spoils

De: Brian Van Reet

Narrado por: Nicol Zanzarella, Armando Duran, Andrew Eiden

It is April 2003. American forces have taken Baghdad and are now charged with winning hearts and minds. But this vital tipping point is barely recognized for what it is, as a series of miscalculations and blunders fuels an already-simmering insurgency intent on making Iraq the next graveyard of empires.

In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines: Cassandra, a nineteen-year-old gunner on an American Humvee who is captured during a deadly firefight and awakens in a prison cell; Abu Al-Hool, a lifelong mujahedeen beset by a simmering crisis of conscience as he struggles against enemies from without and within, including the new wave of far more radicalized jihadists; and Specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who goes along with a "victimless" crime, the consequences of which are more awful than any he could have imagined.

Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat.

"The finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American"-Wall Street Journal, 10 Best Novels of the Year

"An electrifying debut" (The Economist) that maps the blurred lines between good and evil, soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished.

Reseñas de la Crítica

A Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of 2017
A Guardian Best Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
An Indie Next Pick

"Original, deftly plotted and incisively intelligent.... Van Reet occupies these sparring perspectives with impressive balance and dispassion, avoiding the sense of victimhood that often saturates fiction about American soldiers in Iraq. Though the novel offers no pat resolutions, a strange and surprising connection emerges between captive and captors."
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"A wondrously nuanced book.... There is something deeply human here--a story concerned first and foremost with the souls of those who find themselves protagonists in history's darkest chapters."
—Omar El Akkad, author of American War

"A book of inescapable vows and unintended consequences.... SPOILS moves into fresh territory.... The sensory depth and description of place is perfect throughout.... This is a raw study in the ruin of men. It's unapologetic and confessional, showing the flaws in humanity just below the skin.... Every character fears failure, isolation and powerlessness, the American occupation creating a kind of universal captivity. Van Reet shows that no one wins a war like this, and, at some point, everyone fighting in it knows."
—Washington Post

"This vivid debut from a former soldier, about the capture of marines from an Islamist militia, captures the valor, horror and absurdity of conflict.... Van Reet's assured debut novel begins with one of the best opening chapters I've read for ages.... The strengths of this excellent book are all on show in these tight 15 pages: the vivid observation, the nuance of its character, the deep familiarity with the processes of waging war.... Spoils feels not only rewarding, but necessary."
—Guardian

"Brian Van Reet's beautiful, intense, and at times disturbing novel Spoils traces the motivations and desires of combatants on both sides of the Iraq War, showing us what happens when increasing violence and chaos start to warp the choices they're able to make."—Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

"Moving immediately into the pantheon of first-rate war novels, Spoils reads like a nightmare within a tragedy, a story that is both touchingly classic and brutally modern. This is a definitive record of the war that marked the end of the American Empire. One of the best novels of our time in the Middle East."—Philipp Meyer, author of The Son and American Rust

"With Spoils Brian Van Reet has given readers an intensely moving novel. That it is also a nearly comprehensive examination of our modern wars is a remarkable demonstration of both the power and relevance of fiction."—Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds

disappointed after all the hype

this book was hyped as one of the best of 2017. I found it a little slow honestly. While it has a very realistic ending, the middle of it really drug along for me. The narrators were out standing.