I think in America, especially today, our relationship to war is incredible distant. Yet narratives of war have such a primal power in this culture. They mainline directly into a whole series of emotional reactions and understandings of American patriotism,… — Phil Klay Copy Share Image
Fiction is a place where people can meet, where they take the time to very seriously examine and think about the experiences of other… — Phil Klay Copy Share
“late for that,” said Major Zima. “Besides, if there’s one thing I’ve learned doing Civil Affairs in Iraq, it’s that it’s hard to come… — Phil Klay Copy Share
Our country regularly uses military force, but only a fraction of Americans serve in the military. This means fewer and fewer people have a… — Phil Klay Copy Share
Part of the reason I'm writing it is to try to figure out what that is myself. It's not like I came back from… — Phil Klay Copy Share
“She spent all his combat pay before he got back, and she was five months pregnant, which, for a Marine coming back from a… — Phil Klay Copy Share
There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your… — Phil Klay Copy Share
“And glad as I was to be in the States, and even though I hated the past seven months and the only thing that… — Phil Klay Copy Share
“Chaplain Vega’s a tall Mexican guy with a mustache that looks like it’s about to jump off his face and fuck the first rodent… — Phil Klay Copy Share
It's not so much the question that offends me; it's that the people asking it don't seem to respect the moral seriousness of the… — Phil Klay Copy Share
Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters. — Phil Klay Copy Share
“In 2008, around the time I got there, the 82nd Air- borne was building greenhouses near Tikrit. It was a brave new world, and… — Phil Klay Copy Share
The part of the strangeness of coming back from the war is the way we talk about it. We try to have a discussion… — Phil Klay Copy Share
“We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it Operation Scooby. I'm a dog person, so I thought… — Phil Klay Copy Share
Fiction offered me tools that allowed me to approach a wider variety of issues than the events of my own life would. — Phil Klay Copy Share
