Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan War
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Book Details
Author(s)Paul Avallone
ISBN / ASIN1505369487
ISBN-139781505369489
AvailabilityUsually ships in 24 hours
Sales Rank484,067
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description ▲
Tattoo Zoo is a novel that could only have been written by a veteran of more than three years in the Afghan War -- as a Green Beret then a civilian embedded journalist. America's longest war is compressed into a charged forty-six hours with the GIs of the Tattoo Zoo platoon trapped fighting a fierce Taliban in a nowhere piece of picturesque real estate called Wajma Valley, as they are left hung out to dry by a politically correct four-star command hell-bent on prosecuting them for war crimes or just letting them die in place. The story is told from an everyday point of view, simple and accessible, without the poetic literary pretentiousness in so much of the serious fiction of the Afghan and Iraq wars coming out of the elite university fine arts programs, all echoing the anti-war, anti-GI mindset of the morally-superior critical writing establishment. The brilliance of the writing of Tattoo Zoo is the author's ability to camouflage depth of theme and verisimilitude in everyday, straight-forward storytelling that effortlessly entertains, engages, enlightens and eventually moves the reader -- without all that hoity-toity poetic nihilism -- while being, in truth, serious literature.