Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Two devastatingly wounded Vietnam vets, Chaney, who is black, and James, white, both sons of the South, lie in a veteran's hospital and talk freely about combat, movies, sex, old loves, their boyhoods, how it feels to kill a man and why God allows wars to happen. PW described this novel as ``wrenching'' and ``memorable.'' (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"An unforgettable, unshakable novel." --The New York Times Book Review
"The writing, the characters, and the plot are so compelling that you can't help but stay with the book until its conclusion." --Washington Post Book World "There has been no antiwar novel . . . quite like Larry Brown's Dirty Work." --The New York Times "One of the most powerful antiwar novels in American literature." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "A marvelous book . . . Brown's swift, intuitive dialogue explodes like a land mine and leaves the reader dizzy with shock." --The Kansas City Star "A real knockout." --New York Newsday "A powerful and original work all its own that moves along in short, staccato chapters with indisputably authentic language." --The New York Times "Stunning power . . . Dirty Work makes the human cost of war achingly real." --USA Today "An unsparing book, at once brutal and compassionate, horrible, yet funny, too." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Courageous . . . It's hard to imagine a more powerful effect than the one Brown creates with his attentive, unsparing prose." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[Brown] has created two fully realized, believable--and often very funny--characters . . . No one who reads this book is likely to forget them." --The Houston Post "A novel of the first order . . . A gem." --The Washington Post
Reviews
“An unforgettable, unshakable novel.”—The New York Times Book Review
“The writing, the characters, and the plot are so compelling that you can't help but stay with the book until its conclusion.”—Washington Post Book World
“There has been no antiwar novel . . . quite like Larry Brown'sDirty Work.”—The New York Times
“One of the most powerful antiwar novels in American literature.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A marvelous book . . . Brown's swift, intuitive dialogue explodes like a land mine and leaves the reader dizzy with shock.”—The Kansas City Star
“A real knockout.”—New York Newsday
“A powerful and original work all its own that moves along in short, staccato chapters with indisputably authentic language.”—The New York Times
“Stunning power . . . Dirty Workmakes the human cost of war achingly real.”—USA Today
“An unsparing book, at once brutal and compassionate, horrible, yet funny, too.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Courageous . . . It's hard to imagine a more powerful effect than the one Brown creates with his attentive, unsparing prose.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“[Brown] has created two fully realized, believable—and often very funny—characters . . . No one who reads this book is likely to forget them.”—The Houston Post
“A novel of the first order . . . A gem.” —The Washington Post
The Washington Post
"A novel of the first order. . . . A gem."—The Washington Post
The New York Times
"There has been no anti-war novel . . . quite like Dirty Work."—The New York Times
The Kansas City Star
"Explodes like a land mine. . . . A marvelous book."—The Kansas City Star
Newsday
"A real knockout."—New York Newsday
