Kurtz - by John Lawson (Hardcover)

About the Book

A coming-of-age romance and thriller during which Nick, a journalist, and his longtime crush, Annie the Marine, grapple with love and friendship amid the psychological traumas associated with military service and war.

Book Synopsis

Nick Willard may be three years her junior but he has pined for Annie Kurtz since they were both prep school students. After 9/11, however, Annie joins the Marines, eventually making a split-second decision her superiors never wanted her to make and leaving her to wrestle with whether she should have followed orders or her conscience.

After her return from a combat deployment to Afghanistan, Nick, now a successful journalist, must grapple with his own conscience as he uncovers the reasons for the changes to the schoolgirl he has long deified. Together, Nick and Annie explore the tensions between love and friendship, even those between morality and law, as they come of age amid the psychological traumas that result when war makers sweep reality under a rug of ridiculous details.

Review Quotes

A romantic thriller oozing with maturity and insight.

-Gary Shteyngart, NYT bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure

Kurtz is an all-American love story set against the rise of the post-9/11 national security state. John

Lawson deftly mixes youthful romance with foreign intrigue as his novel probes the dark corners

of America's forever wars, telling a tale of a consuming love between an aspiring journalist and

ambitious Marine. It's a bit like reading Graham Greene's Quiet American, but narrated by

the earnest young American rather than the jaded old Brit. A mesmerizing read.

-JOHN DELURY, author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War

in China

In Kurtz, John Lawson has accomplished the rare feat of weaving a biting critique of the

military-intellectual complex into a moving love story. It is a knowing account of war, love,

and longing.

-RAY LOCKER, author of Nixon's Gamble and Haig's Coup

It's extremely rare that I read a novel about women in the Marine Corps and see myself in the

writing, but Lawson's book captures the layered complexities and contradictions of what's fair

in love, military service, and war so beautifully it makes it all feel real. Finally, a fictional

woman Marine leader and protagonist who is anything but a victim, but is fully human in her

flaws, her decisions in combat, and her truths.

-LT. COL. KATE GERMANO, USMC (retired), author of Fight Like A Girl: The Truth Behind How Female

Marines Are Trained

What a ride! Feels like Nicholas Sparks meets Joseph Conrad. John Lawson has conjured a

fascinating book about the Global War on Terror, falling in love and moral courage. Kurtz is

a thrilling mystery and a fast-paced romance, but it's also a cri de coeur for bravery and

empathy to a country that has lost its way. If you want a novel with a heart and mind and a

keen critique of American foreign policy, find Kurtz.

-M.C. ARMSTRONG, author of The Mysteries of Haditha and American Delphi

It's an old story: Men go off to war and women wait to receive them if they return, however

changed. Kurtz turns that ancient verity on its head. Nick Willard is a callow kid when he

falls for older woman Annie Kurtz, and the author depicts him warts and all as he struggles to

grow up and find his way into Annie's arms even as she embarks on a career with the Marines.

Against a backdrop of military absurdity and the horrors of the Afghan war, they seek justice

and learn how to make peace with compromise.

-VALERIE NIEMAN, author of In the Lonely Backwater, a 2022 American Writing Award winner