Dirty Work

( 2 )

Overview


Larry Brown's shattering first novel is the story of two men—strangers—one black, the other white. Both were born and raised in Mississippi. Both fought in Vietnam. Both were gravely wounded. Now, twenty-two years later, both men lie in adjacent beds in a VA hospital. Over the course of a long day and night, they recount their memories, reveal their fears and their dreams, and ponder their fates, until each is irrevocably touched and transformed by the other's life. With great vision, humor, and courage, Brown ...
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Dirty Work

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More About This Book

Overview


Larry Brown's shattering first novel is the story of two men—strangers—one black, the other white. Both were born and raised in Mississippi. Both fought in Vietnam. Both were gravely wounded. Now, twenty-two years later, both men lie in adjacent beds in a VA hospital. Over the course of a long day and night, they recount their memories, reveal their fears and their dreams, and ponder their fates, until each is irrevocably touched and transformed by the other's life. With great vision, humor, and courage, Brown writes of human tenderness in an unforgettable story about the waste of war.

Braiden Chaney lost his arms and legs in Vietnam. Walter James lost most of his face. And when they meet 22 years later--in adjoining beds in a V.A. hospital, their wounds still hurt. As these two men--one black, one white--tell their stories, they tell the story of the war itself and of all the lives--poor black lives in particular--it consumed.

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Editorial Reviews

The New York Times
"There has been no anti-war novel . . . quite like Dirty Work."—The New York Times
The Washington Post
"A novel of the first order. . . . A gem."—The Washington Post
The Kansas City Star
"Explodes like a land mine. . . . A marvelous book."—The Kansas City Star
Newsday
"A real knockout."—New York Newsday
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.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781565125636
  • Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
  • Publication date: 3/28/2007
  • Pages: 247
  • Sales rank: 465,405
  • Product dimensions: 5.54 (w) x 8.22 (h) x 0.73 (d)

Meet the Author

Larry Brown was born in Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he lived all his life. At the age of thirty, a captain in the Oxford Fire Department, he decided to become a writer and worked toward that goal for seven years before publishing his first book, Facing the Music, a collection of stories, in 1988. With the publication of his first novel, Dirty Work, he quit the fire station in order to write fulltime. Between then and his untimely death in 2004, he published seven more books. His three grown children and his widow, Mary Annie Brown, live near Oxford.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 2 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 15, 2013

    Very good

    We are reading this book for book club. I highly recommend it.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 15, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

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