Dirty Work (Vintage Contemporaries) - Softcover

Brown

4.17

1,998 ratings by Goodreads

9780679730491: Dirty Work (Vintage Contemporaries)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679730494 ISBN 13: 9780679730491

Publisher: Random House USA Paperbacks, 1990

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Braiden Chaney has no arms or legs. Walter James has no face. They lost them in Vietnam, along with other, more vital parts of themselves. Now, twenty-two years later, these two Mississippians -- one black, the other white -- lie in adjoining beds in a V.A. hospital. In the course of one long night they tell each other how they came to be what they are and what they can only dream of becoming. Their stories, recounted in voices as distinct and indelible as those of Faulkner, add up to the story of the war itself, and make Dirty Work the most devastating novel of its kind since Dalton Trumbo's Johnny got his gun.

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Review:

An unforgettable, unshakable novel. The New York Times Book Review The writing, the characters, and the plot are so compelling that you can't help but stay with the book until its conclusion. Washington Post Book World There has been no antiwar novel . . . quite like Larry Brown'sDirty Work. The New York Times One of the most powerful antiwar novels in American literature. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution A marvelous book . . . Brown's swift, intuitive dialogue explodes like a land mine and leaves the reader dizzy with shock. The Kansas City Star A real knockout. New York Newsday A powerful and original work all its own that moves along in short, staccato chapters with indisputably authentic language. The New York Times Stunning power . . . Dirty Workmakes the human cost of war achingly real. USA Today An unsparing book, at once brutal and compassionate, horrible, yet funny, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer Courageous . . . It's hard to imagine a more powerful effect than the one Brown creates with his attentive, unsparing prose. St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Brown] has created two fully realized, believable and often very funny characters . . . No one who reads this book is likely to forget them. The Houston Post A novel of the first order . . . A gem. The Washington Post"

From the Back Cover:

Larry Brown's shattering first novel is the story of two men--strangers--one black, the other white. Both were born and raised in Mississippi. Both fought in Vietnam. Both were gravely wounded. Now, twenty-two years later, both men lie in adjacent beds in a VA hospital. Over the course of a long day and night, they recount their memories, reveal their fears and their dreams, and ponder their fates, until each is irrevocably touched and transformed by the other's life. With great vision, humor, and courage, Brown writes of human tenderness in an unforgettable story about the waste of war.

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