Johnny Got His Gun: A Novel

“Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury accounting to eloquence.”—The New York Times

This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered—not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives. . . . This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome . . . but so is war.

Praise for Johnny Got His Gun

“[It is] very hard to write about Johnny Got His Gun without being guilty of understatement or hysterics. It is a terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.”—Washington Post

“An extraordinarily agitating book, passionate in its language, potent in its emotional effect, a novel that tells in unsparingly honest words what a wickedly gruesome business war is, and how wickedly wasteful. Johnny Got His Gun, full of horror and hurt, will be a terrific and vivid experience for anyone who reads it.”—Boston Herald

“It is hard to imagine a more persuasive argument for staying out of war than this smooth, savage, brilliant tale.”—Chicago Daily News