Dust to Dust: A Memoir - Hardcover

Benjamin Busch

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062014846 ISBN 13: 9780062014849

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2012

Synopsis

I knew very early that I was a solitary being. I longed for the elemental. As a child I was drawn to wilderness and the ruins left vacant by human decline, neglect, and tragedy..."Dust to Dust" is an extraordinary memoir about ordinary things: life and death, war and peace, the explorations of childhood and revelations of adulthood. Benjamin Busch - a U.S. Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq, actor on "The Wire", and son of celebrated novelist Frederick Busch - has crafted his own "The Things They Carried" for our time. In chapters themed around the elemental - water, metal, bone, and blood - "Dust to Dust" moves across time from Busch's rural childhood in central New York, to Marine training in North Carolina and California, to the worst of the war in Iraq. Busch writes with great poignancy about a boyhood spent melting down crayons into pretend bullets, sinking his own toy battleships, and playing soldier in the woods. A book full of tree-houses, snow-forts, high-school football, Marine hijinks, fathers and sons, moments of danger and death, real and imagined, "Dust to Dust" is an unforgettable meditation on life, death, and how the child we were remains alive in us all.

About this title

Product Description:

Benjamin Busch - a US Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq, actor on "The Wire", and son of celebrated novelist Frederick Busch - has crafted his own "The Things They Carried". This book covers topics ranging from Busch's rural childhood in central New York, to Marine training in North Carolina and California, to the worst of war in Iraq.

Review:

""Dust to Dust" is a wonderful book, original in concept and stunningly written, a soldier's memoir that is about soldiering and much else besides. The last two dozen pages are a tour de force, a breathtaking meditation on loss and remembrance, dust to dust."--Ward Just

"Busch carries us on a haunting, humorous, and poignant journey."--Publishers Weekly

"A beautiful and powerful meditation on combat, profound loss, and mortality."--Newark Star Ledger

"A beautiful meditation on war, loss, and the larger questions of life and death."--Huffington Post

"A remarkable book--part military memoir, part childhood reminiscence. . . . Busch is filled with complicated and fascinating contradictions."--Salon.com

"Busch writes with eloquence about his tours of combat in Iraq, and seamlessly blends the human and natural characteristics of war."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"An invigorating and moving take on the war memoir."--Wisconsin State Journal

"Beautifully written. . . . Captivating. . . . It's fascinating to journey through [these] literary landscapes as time passes, swirls back, and eddies like a stream before flowing away."--Seattle Times

"Intriguing. . . . A worthwhile read."--Buffalo News

"A meditation on the literal and figurative borders of life--country to country, river to lake, soil to dust, wood to ash, life to death, blood to bones, child to man--[that] explores the wonders of the natural world and our solitary lives within it."--Hour Detroit magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0062014846
• ISBN 13: 9780062014849
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320