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ISBN: 9781538538708
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ISBN: 9781538538678
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All deaths are hard to bear. But losing a son is the hardest. Memory of war always loomed large for Dwight Bogdanovic. After all, his immigrant grandfather volunteered to fight in World War I and his working-class father joined up with the Canadian Army to fight the Nazis early in World War II. Yet it is only when Dwight’s soldier son, Bertrand, is killed under mysterious circumstances in Afghanistan that he really tries to understand why men fight and die. Dwight Bogdanovic enjoyed a golden childhood in his idealized vision of 1950s America—freely riding his bicycle in the streets, pick-up ball games in the park, and earning pocket money by shoveling snow or raking leaves for neighbors—but coming of age proved difficult for him. After dropping out of college during the height of the Vietnam War and after receiving a medical deferment from the draft he travels the Midwest selling encyclopedias door-to-door to people who don’t want them, then returns to his hometown of Indianapolis. There he lands a series of temp jobs and hooks up with a hippie girlfriend before meeting the good woman who will become his wife. All seems right again until, one by one, all his beloveds succumb to their own fates—disease, old age, and war. Especially his son, especially war. Dwight struggles to overcome the loss of Bertrand and constantly replays letters from him in his head before realizing, with the help of yet another woman in his life, that the greatest challenge is not merely to survive, but to let go.
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Summary
Summary
All deaths are hard to bear. But losing a son is the hardest.
Memory of war always loomed large for Dwight Bogdanovic. After all, his immigrant grandfather volunteered to fight in World War I and his working-class father joined up with the Canadian Army to fight the Nazis early in World War II. Yet it is only when Dwight’s soldier son, Bertrand, is killed under mysterious circumstances in Afghanistan that he really tries to understand why men fight and die.
Dwight Bogdanovic enjoyed a golden childhood in his idealized vision of 1950s America—freely riding his bicycle in the streets, pick-up ball games in the park, and earning pocket money by shoveling snow or raking leaves for neighbors—but coming of age proved difficult for him. After dropping out of college during the height of the Vietnam War and after receiving a medical deferment from the draft he travels the Midwest selling encyclopedias door-to-door to people who don’t want them, then returns to his hometown of Indianapolis. There he lands a series of temp jobs and hooks up with a hippie girlfriend before meeting the good woman who will become his wife. All seems right again until, one by one, all his beloveds succumb to their own fates—disease, old age, and war. Especially his son, especially war. Dwight struggles to overcome the loss of Bertrand and constantly replays letters from him in his head before realizing, with the help of yet another woman in his life, that the greatest challenge is not merely to survive, but to let go.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Reviews
Reviews
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Honest, and elegantly written, narrative of a father's loss when his soldier son dies
- Most war novels either are anit-war books, or John Wayne-type, gung ho narratives. This is different. Very quietly written, not bombastic at all, but with feeling and precision, it tells the lifelong story of a working-class Indianapolis man whose grandfather and father served in the military and whose son, even though named for the pacifist Bertrand Russell, also served. The story is mostly the father's - what did he do in his life? what brave acts can he point to - and it's all brought home when his soldier son dies in mysterious circumstances in Afghanistan. There are clear "ripped from the headlines" war scenes here, though not much war or fighting at all, such as a riff on the Bowe Bergdahl desertion and the American sharpshooter who was killed when he returned home, basically more about the strangeness of war that about "action," and it's very different in that regard. One popular Goodreads-linked review site calls the book "gorgeously written." I can't disagree.
Details
Details
Available Formats : | Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD |
Category: | Fiction/Literary |
Runtime: | 5.83 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
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