Synopsis:

A fictional Jarhead—a novel that artfully and viscerally conveys the emotional toll of contemporary warfare's random terror. In scenes that flicker with the restless intensity of an unguarded flame, we enter the life of a young American member of the Israeli Defense Force. Patrolling the streets of Gaza in the dead of night, playing a high-stakes off-duty game of Risk with his fellow soldiers, making passionate love to the wife of his best friend, Nathan Falk lives each moment with an increasing awareness of the arbitrary boundary between life and death. As MATCHES uncoils its searing tale of betrayal and guilt in love and war, the novel offers a revealing portrait of the damage war does to the soul of a man.

Book Excerpt:

he patrol snaked through the city and then burst out into open desert so vast you ducked your helmet in despair. Sandy grit chafed your delicate white eyeballs despite the goggles. And you fingered the trigger of your CAR-15 or Galil or whatever you carried with an almost sensual stroking pressure, since at once you were under the strictest orders not to shoot under any circumstances, barring outright hostile gunfire (and even then in most cases, not to respond until ordered to by a superior) and yet also, at any moment, some gunmen might quick-trot alongside your vehicle, blow your brains out, and melt back into the crazy zigzag hovels, alleys, and streets. This kind of delicious tension possessed for me the kick that a horny boarding school student must feel when under rigorous mandate to refrain at all costs from onanism. Of course, I was also bored to death, had no wish to actually kill. It was only the idea that titillated, the restrictive administrative taboo that I ached to violate. To let off one jubilant round into the sickly yellowish sky of a terrorist's leg, like a barbiturate injected against psychotic instability."

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Topics/Categories:

Judaism

Best Sellers:

San Francisco Chronicle Paperback Best Sellers; San Francisco Chronicle 'The Years Best Books-2005'

Type of Work:

Novel

Publishers:

Constable and Robinson Little, Brown and Co., Inc.

Purchase From:

Matches Matches

Original Publish Date:

10/14/2005

ISBNs:

0-316-10664-X ISBN 13 978-1-84529-261-4 ISBN-10 1-84529-261-8

Formats:

Paperback U.S. and Canada Paperback UK