Fire and Forget

These stories aren’t pretty and they aren’t for the faint of heart. They are realistic, haunting and shocking. And they are all unforgettable. Television reports, movies, newspapers and blogs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have offered images of the fighting there. But this collection offers voices—powerful voices, telling the kind of truth that only fiction can offer.

“The best fictional account of the wars of the last decade and the contemporary military experience…Fresh, raw, and vital. It is a rare thing for a book to live up to its blurb, but E.L. Doctorow got it right when he called this a ‘necessary’ collection.”
–The Millions

“A visceral, all-too-real collection of short stories by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…This is fiction as good as any you’ll read anywhere…These pages contain a record of the cost of our excursions abroad that is as illustrative as any culture can produce.”
–Barnes & Noble Review

“The range of stories in Fire and Forget displays a remarkable depth and breadth of the experience of the Iraq war.”
–The Guardian 

“Captures the messiness of soldiering when the mission and endgame are unclear. Though fiction, each work reads true, filled with tension, fear, and anger. Readers are transported to desert checkpoints, ride along with vehicle convoys, and return home from combat to face an uncertain future.”
–Booklist