Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of Hooplah surround this, July 20 2007
One source says he teaches at Princeton, but I didn't see him listed on their faculty site. So who knows. This is his book of stories to prove his talent. He's received a good deal of whoop dee doo over it too. But let's separate the subject, invasion of the middle east by the united states, from his ability to put together and craft a story. These are readable, moving sometimes quickly, at other times with a tough jumpiness. The novella ending up the book feels less like a novella and more like an extended story in which Steven King meets Will Self, but without the horror or the linguistic fireworks. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading it, but afterwards it left me with little more than an "ok he wrote them" feeling. As far as stories go, they're not stunners but better than the stories in The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien by far. Even so they are as topically shallow as O'Brien's book, hardly ever rising to the level of a powerful story. I found his story in Granta's New American Novelists to be better than anything in this book. There is some humor in the book, mainly the sort of unease humor as a guy makes a joke about the horrors of individual actions in war. The title story, Dear Mr. President is a ramble and perhaps the weakest of the book. It will be interesting to see what Hudson can write once he moved beyond his genre.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
A REVELATION, Oct 5 2003
Wow, Dear Mr. President is a story collection that heralds the arrival of a great new writer! Gabe Hudson, to me, is the first writer that signals a transition of generations from war fiction about Vietnam to the group of young people who fought in the first Iraqi War. Due to the overinundation of books like Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and the almost God-like worship of writers like Ambrose, the soldiers of wars after that (Korea,Vietnam,Iraq) are not given the attention and respect that they deserve. In Dear Mr. President, we are not treated to the super, almost soviet style citizen of the fatherland that Ambrose glorified in his books, but men and women who are bashed and broken and absurd and humorous and insane and brave and trying to do the best they can. In "The Cure as I Found It", a soldier returned from the Gulf War must decide if the rules he learned in the special forces, namely to maim and kill, can be used against a neighborhood bully as he deals with the horrors of war in his nightmares.
Among the best stories is "Sneak and Peek Outside Baghdad" about a reconaissance mission which finds that the worst aspects of American hip-hop culture have transferred to Iraq even as one soldier remembers his lover left in the US. "Those Words Were Yours Not Mine" is about a blind woman named Valerie Hackett, whose 19 year old son is killed in the War. On his person is found a letter which she can't read. After asking a lot of people to read it to her, she senses that they are all lying to her, concealing the dreadful contents from her. So she hires someone at the hospital she's staying in to read it and learns about her son's disastrous marriage, of infidelity and betrayal. The last story, a novella called "Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8" is a plea for peace and brotherhood as a Green Beret, shocked by the blood and guts he sees, gathers up a wounded comrade and abandons the war, holding up in a bunker with a bunch of lab apes, venturing out to the surface to help out wounded civilians and keeping his friend a virtual prisoner in his insane fantasies. This was a great great book. The stories are funny, horrible, psycho, and masterful at times. He writes like Chuck Palahniuk, if Chuck had something to write about. Gabe has a war. With war comes atrocity, insanity, and absurdity. It's about time someone not only caught up to history, but overtaken it. Ironically, just as this book comes out, we are again engaged in Iraq (some would say we were never disengaged) and so the very issues the men and women deal with in this book might as well be set in the present. Hudson might just evolve into a great writer. We'll see.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
They've missed it..., Aug 12 2003
I've been pretty disappointed with most of the negative reviews of this book posted here so far. First, there's the contention that the book isn't funny at all. How is a story about an ear growing out of a man's chest not funny? I think people are expecting this to be some kind of historical account of Gulf War 1. I mean, looking at the "customers who bought this item also bought" section, it seems as though most of the people who are reading this book are expecting some kind of political statement. I think the stories in the collection are stories first and historical accounts second, if not third or fourth. I think the major problem with most of these reviews is that they seem to be written by people who have no familiarity with what's being written today. Sure, this ain't a John Jakes historical novel, but if it were, it wouldn't be as brilliant as it is.Also, there are many comparisons made between these stories and O'Brian's stories about the Vietnam War, and I think this collection far surpasses The Things They Carried. I, personally, do not consider myself a fan of war fiction, and this book appealed to me nevertheless. With Roth, it's war first and character second, and Dear Mr. President is the opposite. So yeah, if you jarheads wants to read some deep gut military prose, then you won't like this. But if you want to read some beautiful modern writing, I'm talking about really beautiful, near-perfect storytelling, then I suggest you get this book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most recent customer reviews
|
