Dirty Work - by Larry Brown (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Dirty Work is the story of two men, strangers--one white, the other black. Both were born and raised in Mississippi. Both fought in Vietnam. Both were gravely wounded. Now, twenty-two years later, the two men lie in adjacent beds in a VA hospital.Over the course of a day and a night, Walter James and Braiden Chaney talk of memories, of passions, of fate.

With great vision, humor, and courage, Brown writes mostly about love in a story about the waste of war.

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"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