All the Ruined Men: Stories

by Bill Glose

Overview

For readers of Phil Klay, Kevin Powers, and Tim O'Brien: Dramatic, powerful, authentic short stories of soldiers fighting a "forever war," in combat and back home, and the 2023 winner of the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction.

Combat takes a different toll on each soldier; so does coming home. All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose comprises linked stories that show veterans struggling for normalcy as they grapple with flashbacks, injuries (both physical and psychological), damaged relationships, loss of faith, and loss of memory. Beginning in 2003, All the Ruined Men spans ten years, from the confident beginning of America’s “forever war” to the confusion and disillusionment that followed.

As a former paratrooper and Gulf War veteran, author Bill Glose is closely bound to these stories. Drawing from his own experiences and military knowledge, Glose presents a cast of complex and sympathetic characters: young men who embraced what seemed like a war of just cause, who trained and fought and lived and died together, and who have returned to families, wives, children, civilian life, and an America that has lost its way.

Unforgettable, moving, filled with moments of anguish, doubt, love, hope, and other emotions, All the Ruined Men is a singular debut collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250279897
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Bill Glose is a combat veteran and former paratrooper. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Postscript to War and Virginia Walkabout. His magazine articles, stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Missouri Review, The Sun, Narrative Magazine, and The Writer. Glose received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Award, the Robert Bausch Fiction Award, and the Dateline Award for Excellence in Journalism. Glose was named the Daily Press Poet Laureate in 2011 and featured by NPR on The Writer’s Almanac in 2017.

Table of Contents

In the Early, Cocksure Days
Dirge
Red Legs
Dead Man's Hands
Replacements
Dog is Not a Palindrome
River Crossing
Sacrifices
Exodus
First Drunk Night Back
Bright, Inconsequential Things
What Won't Stay Buried
All the Fractured Pieces
The Dead Aren't Allowed to Walk
Her Brother's Apartment
Falling Backwards
Penultimate Dad
Words Outlive the Tongue

Acknowledgments
Glossary
Author's Note

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/20/2022

Combat veteran Glose debuts with an emotionally charged linked collection about a squad of American soldiers trying to survive combat and its aftermath after tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. “In the Early Cocksure Days” sees a sergeant trying to resolve a quarrel between two squadmates in Iraq using improvised lances and camels. A soldier who was wounded by an IED finds that his facial disfigurement in civilian life is actually an advantage while playing high stakes poker in “Dead Man’s Hand.” In “The Dead Aren’t Allowed to Walk,” set in Virginia Beach, Va., Curtis Bradshaw sees the officer responsible for a friendly fire incident that killed his friend, and now Curtis contemplates revenge. In the best story, “Penultimate Dad,” a man tries to use his military training to make contact with his estranged teenage daughter. The closer, “Words Outlive the Tongue,” in which all the squad members’ voices are heard, offers a devastating summation of everything. Glose writes knowingly about the emotions that assault soldiers coming home from a combat zone and confronting a world that no longer makes sense to them, making for a powerful statement on the war that is waged once soldiers return home. This sterling collection stands with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"In this collection, Bill Glose hinges the traumas of war to everyday events: playing poker, hosting a party, digging a pool. All the Ruined Men is an impressive debut from a seasoned storyteller who understands nuance and character and how memory abides inside every present moment. These stories are brutal, disarming, tender, and wrenching. They are also very well-written — lyrical, yet understated — harrowing, piercing, fierce." —Sheri Reynolds, author of The Tender Grave and The Rapture of Canaan

“Through these heartfelt stories Bill Glose shatters the myth of the tight-lipped, stoic veteran.” —Will Mackin, author of Bring Out the Dog

"Brutally honest.... An important book all Americans should read to understand the fallout from twenty years of continuous war." —Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk

"Searing, evocative, masterfully told." —Mark Treanor, author of A Quiet Cadence

"This accomplished book is more than a collection of war tales. It's a reckoning." —Matt Gallagher, author of Empire City and Youngblood

"Glose rivets the reader’s attention with gritty, convincing detail...A tribute to those whose lives were wrecked by fighting in America’s longest war, All the Ruined Men is one of the most moving collections I’ve ever read." —David Poyer, author of Violent Peace and Heroes of Annapolis

"Glose adds his impressive voice to those of writers like Kevin Powers and Phil Klay who have produced powerful fiction about the experience of American soldiers fighting in the 21st-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . A collection of painfully honest and consistently empathetic glimpses of modern American soldiers in war and peace." —Kirkus, starred review

"Emotionally charged...This sterling connection stands with Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried." —Publishers Weekly starred review

From the Publisher

03/01/2022

A debut author at 80, Campbell resists stereotyping as she explores the lives and desires of women aged 60 to 90 in Cat Brushing. From public school teacher and NYU MFA graduate Fofana, the eight linked portraits in Stories from The Tenants Downstairs plumb the lives of tenants in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem threatened by gentrification (150,000-copy first printing). The author of five books of poetry and winner of F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story and Robert Bausch Fiction awards, combat veteran Glose tells what it was like to fight the "forever" war in All the Ruined Men. First published in Japan in 2003, popular author Yoshimoto's Dead-End Memories limns women making unusual discoveries as they find ways to heal from trauma.

Library Journal

★ 2022-05-11
The lives of combat soldiers in America’s “forever wars.”

Glose adds his impressive voice to those of writers like Kevin Powers and Phil Klay who have produced powerful fiction about the experience of American soldiers fighting in the 21st-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 18 linked stories in this debut collection follow the fortunes of six members of a single platoon of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division (in which Glose served during the 1991 Gulf War), some of whose members have experienced four tours of combat duty in four years. They gaze with an unblinking eye at the physical and emotional tolls exacted from soldiers who aren’t fighting for a great cause but instead “because it was their job, each man risking everything because he loved the man next to him. Simple as that.” The relentless fear that grips these men and their anxiety and nightmares only partially quelled by cocktails of prescription drugs when they return to a country that has little understanding of all they’ve sacrificed are recurring themes. Accounts from the war zone like “Dirge,” in which one character is killed by an IED and another sustains a disfiguring facial wound, or “The Dead Aren’t Allowed To Walk,” in which an avoidable friendly fire incident takes the life of a key member of the platoon, reveal the omnipresence of random sudden death or catastrophic injury. In settings that range from an upscale suburban neighborhood in Princeton, New Jersey (“Sacrifices”), to a seedy bar in Pensacola, Florida (“First Drunk Night Back”), Glose exposes painful truths about the devastation wreaked on these soldiers and the families that ached for their safe returns and now struggle to relate to them when they arrive home. Throughout, he makes no effort to conceal the harsh realities of these damaged lives.

A collection of painfully honest and consistently empathetic glimpses of modern American soldiers in war and peace.

Kirkus Reviews