What is David Abrams reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: David Abrams, author of  Fobbit.

His entry begins:

I’ve just started reading Benjamin Percy’s new novel Red Moon, which will be out in May. I’m reading an advance copy on my Kindle and I feel like someone who has just boarded a time machine, flown to the near future where he learns there will be a bunch of very cool and delightful things happening (like: a permanent end to all wars, and the sudden popularity of bacon-flavored ice cream), and then comes back to his humdrum present-day where he must walk around with all this excitement about the future boiling in his chest and even though he tries to tell everyone how wonderful life is about to get, no one really believes him. Yeah, that’s how I feel reading my copy of Red Moon before everyone else in the world. Get ready, folks—this is the bacon-flavored...[read on]

About Fobbit, from the publisher:

Fobbit ’fä-b t, noun. Definition: A U.S. soldier stationed at a Forward Operating Base who avoids combat by remaining at the base, esp. during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–2011). Pejorative.

Fobbit is a darkly ironic novel of the Iraq war that marks the debut of a new voice in literary fiction. Based on the author’s own experiences serving in Iraq and the diary he kept there, Fobbit takes us into the cha­otic world of Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Triumph. The Forward Operating Base, or FOB, is like the back-office of the battlefield—where the grunts eat and sleep between missions, and where a lot of Army employees have what looks suspiciously like an office job. The FOB contains all the comforts of home, including Starbucks and Burger King, but there’s also the unfortunate possibility that a mortar might hit you while you’re drinking your Frappucino.

A lot of what goes on at the FOB doesn’t exactly fit the image of war that the army and the government feed us: male and female soldiers are trying to find an empty Porta-Potty in which to get acquainted, grunts are playing Xbox and watching NASCAR between missions, and most of the senior staff are more concerned about getting to the chow hall in time for the Friday night all-you-can-eat seafood special than worrying about little things like military strategy. The book follows dyed-in-the-wool Fobbit Staff Sergeant Chance Gooding, who works for the army public affairs office and spends his days tap­ping out press releases to try to turn the latest roadside bombing or army blunder into something that the American public can read about while eating their breakfast cereal.

Like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Fobbit fuses pathos with dark humor to cre­ate a brilliantly witty and profound work about the ugly and banal truth of life in the modern-day war zone.

Learn more about the book and author at David Abrams' website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Fobbit.

Writers Read: David Abrams.

--Marshal Zeringue