Brave Deeds

Praise for Brave Deeds "The satirical verve of Mr. Abrams's first novel, Fobbit (2012), has been compared with Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Like Fobbit . . . Brave Deeds . . . draws on the author's twenty years as an Army journalist."--Wall Street Journal (5 Soldiers-Turned-Authors to Know)

"Earnest and affecting . . . The soldiers are foulmouthed, sex-obsessed and fiercely loyal for reasons they can't quite articulate--in other words, packed with young American male authenticity. Abrams's prose is relaxed and conversational, with a few scattered literary nuggets that add heft, like chunks of beef in a vegetable soup . . . The mash-up works, and Abrams's voice is clear and strong."--Brian Castner, Washington Post

"Outstanding . . . With a little bit of humor and bumbling grace, these six soldiers magnify what is both beautiful and despairing about the American military . . . An honest encounter with the realities of what it means to serve in a war as a part of a collective that is not, essentially, collected."--Missoulian

"Brave Deeds is a serious rendering of one of our more recent forays into military action . . . 254 pages of tension-filled drama about a group of American soldiers showing loyalty, bravery, and their own forms of human frailty as they persevere in what appears to be a doomed mission across hostile territory."--Montana Standard

"When David Abrams . . . focuses his shrewd hawk eyes on six AWOL soldiers, you can bet on a mish-mash of comic sarcasm and parody marching in step with a story that will have you cringing and nearly crying out of laughter or sadness till the end."--Raleigh News & Observer

"A stirring, sardonic war story . . . Mordantly funny and harrowing . . . Reminiscent of such classic war novels as Catch-22 . . . Among the war's dangers, which he renders with hold-your-breath vividness, Abrams finds deeply human moments . . . Brave Deeds does what the most memorable books about war always do: honor the valor and sacrifice of soldiers while facing unflinchingly how little the rest of the world may value them."--Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times

"One might draw a straighter line of comparison to Vonnegut rather than Heller in [Abrams's] scathing treatment of war and its inhabitants . . . His use of satire--much as it was in his debut novel, Fobbit--is that warm bath into which the reader sinks, only to find herself in boiling water a few minutes later. The events of Brave Deeds escalate as the book progresses, as all good journey novels should . . . Abrams never drops a thread."--Rachel Kambury, Consequence Magazine

"I'm much reminded of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, in which a funeral dominates the narrative . . . As I Lay Dying is dark comedy classic, which Brave Deeds seems likely to become . . . Read this book."--David Wilson, The Veteran

"Describing the soldiers' perilous journey while filling in details of their backgrounds and the military situation in Iraq, this excellent novel is believable, dramatic, and also quite funny."--Library Journal (starred review)

"[Brave Deeds] builds to an emotionally wrenching and tension-filled climax . . . Filled with vivid characterizations and memorable moments, this novel--as with classic modern war literature from John Hersey's Into the Valley to David Halberstam's One Very Hot Day--turns a single military action into a microcosm of an entire war."--Publishers Weekly

"Abrams follows his award-winning debut with a more empathetic but no less bitter take on the Iraq War . . . The M4 action explodes in short, spare declarative sentences, every bullet another shot at the cruel and illogical aspects of war. A powerful story on its surface, a soldier's story laced with vulgarities and gallows humor, but also a story holding deeper interpretations of our troubled Middle Eastern misadventures."--Kirkus Reviews

"Hilariously absurd, Abrams surprises with pathos and tenderness. This is military fiction at its truest."--Booklist

"It is a story as old as The Odyssey--soldiers far from home on a less-than-rational and dangerous journey . . . With compact precision and the amusing patter of a sardonic narrator, Abrams captures the unusual histories of these ordinary men shuffling through Baghdad as they encounter the horrors of war. They may be AWOL on a personal mission outside command protocol, but they are heroes in their own ways and perform small brave deeds in the midst of half-baked chaos."--Shelf Awareness

"Abrams gave himself a lot of moving parts to juggle and not one of them hit the ground--this is an excellent novel about war and about life."--Emerging Writers Network

"Brave Deeds perfectly captures the strange mixture of camaraderie, humor, beauty and brutality experienced by men at war. It reads like a fever dream, like unvarnished documentary truth, and sometimes like both at once."--Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment

"In one very full, very messed up and hair-raising day, Brave Deeds delivers everything we could ever ask for in a novel, no less than birth, death, and all points in between. David Abrams has written a flat-out brilliant book of the Iraq War, one that reads like a compact version of the Odyssey or Going After Cacciato. Soldiers on a journey--it's one of humankind's oldest stories, and Abrams has given us the latest dispatch from the field, to stunning effect."--Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"At the beginning of Brave Deeds I was laughing out loud, and enjoying the feeling of being among the Army squad, even one making an insane walk through Baghdad. But by the end of the book I was silent: I was really undone by it. David Abrams has done something very powerful, drawing together the different layers of this story so beautifully, and drawing us down below the surface to a place of darkness and sadness. It's a tour de force. Bravo."--Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta

"I have never read another author with David Abrams's uncanny knack for laugh-out-loud sarcasm one instant and gutting compassion in the next. If there's a situation more emblematic of the forever wars--in league with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk--I can't imagine it. By the end Abrams had me holding my heart in my hands. Brave Deeds is hilarious, subversive, devastating, beautiful, human, and written with the kind of skillful light touch we expect from master fiction writers."--Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night

"A dizzying rush of a story, Brave Deeds serves as a testament to the manifold acts of courage and folly demanded by soldiering. David Abrams writes with moxie, and this odyssey across Baghdad cements his standing as one of our most indispensable chroniclers of contemporary war."--Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood and Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War Advance Praise for Brave Deeds "The satirical verve of Mr. Abrams's first novel, Fobbit (2012), has been compared with Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Like Fobbit . . . Brave Deeds . . . draws on the author's twenty years as an Army journalist."--Wall Street Journal (5 Soldiers-Turned-Authors to Know)

"Describing the soldiers' perilous journey while filling in details of their backgrounds and the military situation in Iraq, this excellent novel is believable, dramatic, and also quite funny."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Brave Deeds perfectly captures the strange mixture of camaraderie, humor, beauty and brutality experienced by men at war. It reads like a fever dream, like unvarnished documentary truth, and sometimes like both at once."--Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment

"In one very full, very messed up and hair-raising day, Brave Deeds delivers everything we could ever ask for in a novel, no less than birth, death, and all points in between. David Abrams has written a flat-out brilliant book of the Iraq War, one that reads like a compact version of the Odyssey or Going After Cacciato. Soldiers on a journey--it's one of humankind's oldest stories, and Abrams has given us the latest dispatch from the field, to stunning effect."--Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"At the beginning of Brave Deeds I was laughing out loud, and enjoying the feeling of being among the Army squad, even one making an insane walk through Baghdad. But by the end of the book I was silent: I was really undone by it. David Abrams has done something very powerful, drawing together the different layers of this story so beautifully, and drawing us down below the surface to a place of darkness and sadness. It's a tour de force. Bravo."--Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta

"I have never read another author with David Abrams's uncanny knack for laugh-out-loud sarcasm one instant and gutting compassion in the next. If there's a situation more emblematic of the forever wars--in league with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk--I can't imagine it. By the end Abrams had me holding my heart in my hands. Brave Deeds is hilarious, subversive, devastating, beautiful, human, and written with the kind of skillful light touch we expect from master fiction writers."--Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night

"A dizzying rush of a story, Brave Deeds serves as a testament to the manifold acts of courage and folly demanded by soldiering. David Abrams writes with moxie, and this odyssey across Baghdad cements his standing as one of our most indispensable chroniclers of contemporary war."--Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood and Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War Advance Praise for Brave Deeds -The satirical verve of Mr. Abrams's first novel, Fobbit (2012), has been compared with Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Like Fobbit . . . Brave Deeds . . . draws on the author's twenty years as an Army journalist.---Wall Street Journal (5 Soldiers-Turned-Authors to Know) -Brave Deeds perfectly captures the strange mixture of camaraderie, humor, beauty and brutality experienced by men at war. It reads like a fever dream, like unvarnished documentary truth, and sometimes like both at once.---Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment -In one very full, very messed up and hair-raising day, Brave Deeds delivers everything we could ever ask for in a novel, no less than birth, death, and all points in between. David Abrams has written a flat-out brilliant book of the Iraq War, one that reads like a compact version of the Odyssey or Going After Cacciato. Soldiers on a journey--it's one of humankind's oldest stories, and Abrams has given us the latest dispatch from the field, to stunning effect.---Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk -At the beginning of Brave Deeds I was laughing out loud, and enjoying the feeling of being among the Army squad, even one making an insane walk through Baghdad. But by the end of the book I was silent: I was really undone by it. David Abrams has done something very powerful, drawing together the different layers of this story so beautifully, and drawing us down below the surface to a place of darkness and sadness. It's a tour de force. Bravo.---Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta -I have never read another author with David Abrams's uncanny knack for laugh-out-loud sarcasm one instant and gutting compassion in the next. If there's a situation more emblematic of the forever wars--in league with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk--I can't imagine it. By the end Abrams had me holding my heart in my hands. Brave Deeds is hilarious, subversive, devastating, beautiful, human, and written with the kind of skillful light touch we expect from master fiction writers.---Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night -A dizzying rush of a story, Brave Deeds serves as a testament to the manifold acts of courage and folly demanded by soldiering. David Abrams writes with moxie, and this odyssey across Baghdad cements his standing as one of our most indispensable chroniclers of contemporary war.---Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood and Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War Praise for Fobbit A B&N Discover Great New Writers Selection One of Publishers Weekly s Top 10 Literary Fiction picks for the Fall 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. Christian Bauman, 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. Benjamin Busch, Washington Post A harrowing satire of the Iraq War and an instant classic . . . the book s most riveting moments are about crafting spin, putting the Iraqi Face on the conflict. A sequence in which a press release is drafter and edited and scrutinized, held up for so long that its eventual release is old news, is a pointed vision of losing a public relations war. Abrams . . . brings great authority and verisimilitude to his depictions of these attempts to shape the perceptions of the conflict. 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) 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. Jim Frederick, TIME Akin to Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Fobbit uses pathos and dark humor to present the ugly and banal truth of life in the modern-day war zone . . . David Abrams [has] set fire to the truth in order to tell it. Doug Bradley, Huffington Post Wavy Gravy once said, Without a sense of humor, it just isn t funny. Fobbit is hilarious, but the subject matter is deadly serious. The protagonist is a fobbit, the term used by the grunts for the non-combatants ensconced inside well-protected forward operating bases, oases of junk food, air-conditioning, and all the comforts of home. But throughout the book, the fobbits are shadowed by the presence of the infantry who live in horrible conditions and are the smelly, dirty, haggard reminders that there is a real war going on just outside the gates. 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 writerindeed, the rare personwho 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] 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 screamsand makes its mark on Iraq war literature. Minneapolis Star Tribune 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 onea 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 Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salveit feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit 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 Stories in and around war rely on irony to convey this unnatural human behavior; but in this appalling comedy the indifference of participants not actually being shot at or blown uptheir headlong pursuit of follyraises the immorality of war to white heat. 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. David Abrams has taken up Joe Heller s mantleor not mantle; more like his Groucho nose and his whoopee cushionand so his debut marks the arrival of a massive talent. Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life 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 You might not expect an Iraq War novel to be funny, but I laughedmore than onceas 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. Many of his characters are absurd . . . but they re not caricatures, and Abrams never yields to cruelty . . . There are no heroes here, but no villains either. Each character fights his own war, and nobody wins. Millions 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 With masterful wit and satire, Abrams describes this life of alphabet-soup acronyms, handwringing junior officers and the frustrating bureaucracy of orchestrating a war from a desk . . . 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 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 the different types of battles that our soldiers encounter on a non-traditional battlefield. Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone Fobbit should be required reading for America. Hilarious and tragic, it s as if Louis C.K. and Lewis Black provided commentary to The Hurt Locker. I read the novel mesmerized, and found myself thinking Please tell me none of this is autobiographical on just about every page. There will be innumerable comparisons to Catch-22, but Fobbit, believe me, stands on its own. Thank you, David Abrams, for your vision, heart, and daring. George Singleton, author of Stray Decorum A darkly funny chronicle of the Iraq War, Fobbit explores the modern military machine with searing resolve. Contemporary warfare is often as absurd as it is ugly, a truth that gives Fobbit and its unforgettable cast of characters both depth and nuance. Ironic and brash, and loud and proud, Fobbit promises to be a celebrated harbinger of things to come, both for Abrams and for war literature set in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a book that speaks to the power of fictiona war story too profane and profound for the newspapers and the nightly news. Want to think, laugh and cry, all at the same time? Read this novel. Matt Gallagher, author of Kaboom With a gimlet eye and humor as dry as a desert sandstorm, Abrams captures the absurdist angle of the Iraq war. A direct counterpoint to hero-worshipping shoot em up combat narratives, Fobbit proves that wit is as lethal a weapon as any Army-issue M16 or .50 cal. Lily Burana, author of I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles The first major work of fiction about America s war for Iraq. Aaron Gwyn, author of Dog on the Cross and The World Beneath"