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121st out of 192 books
—
230 voters
Falcons on the Floor
by
Justin Sirois (Goodreads Author)
On the eve of the first siege of Fallujah, Salim and Khalil decide their best chances of avoiding the battle is to escape up the Euphrates river. Pursued by Coalition and Fedayeen forces, they discover that the war will redefine who they are no matter how far they try to run from it.
Early praise from Dahr Jamail:
Falcons on the Floor is the rare novel about war that re-huma...more
Early praise from Dahr Jamail:
Falcons on the Floor is the rare novel about war that re-huma...more
Paperback, first, 300 pages
Published
March 20th 2012
by Publishing Genius Press
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Falcons on the Floor exceeded my expectations--and having previously read and been impressed by MLKNG SCKLS, my expectations were pretty high.
It really is refreshing to see such an ambitious, meticulous novel come out of the small-press scene. What Sirois has done here cannot have been easy. Even beyond the huge scope of the story, or the well-drawn, believable depth of the characters, the multiple points of view, the geographical and historical accuracy. Just looking at this book on the sentenc...more
It really is refreshing to see such an ambitious, meticulous novel come out of the small-press scene. What Sirois has done here cannot have been easy. Even beyond the huge scope of the story, or the well-drawn, believable depth of the characters, the multiple points of view, the geographical and historical accuracy. Just looking at this book on the sentenc...more
In his powerful and methodical novel, Sirois guides the reader on a three-day trek from Fallujah to Ramadi as two young Iraqis attempt to elude the violence that has become entrenched in their lives. Spurred by his desire to slip away from his contract work as a designer of propaganda for the Fedayeen—and to contact a woman he only knows via the internet—Salim prepares to set out on what he believes will be a solo journey until his longtime friend Khalil insists on accompanying him. Khalil has a...more
http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/07/book-review-falcons-on-floor-by-justi...
I was recently sent a copy of Justin Sirois' Falcons on the Floor by the kind folks at Publishing Genius Press.
Sirois pulls no punches, sending us straight into Fallujah on the eve of the siege that marked one of the bloodiest chapters of the Iraq War.
This was not a place I wanted to go. I never served; I opposed that war even as my friends and family members found themselves in places I followed on the nightly ne...more
I was recently sent a copy of Justin Sirois' Falcons on the Floor by the kind folks at Publishing Genius Press.
Sirois pulls no punches, sending us straight into Fallujah on the eve of the siege that marked one of the bloodiest chapters of the Iraq War.
This was not a place I wanted to go. I never served; I opposed that war even as my friends and family members found themselves in places I followed on the nightly ne...more
Read Sirois’s Falcons on the Floor for paragraphs like this:
Everyone waited for the American election results. Four more years meant more to us than it did to the Americans, I think. There was something about Florida and voting machines or something. I searched on the Internet Florida—swamp land, Seminole Indians, Mickey Mouse, NASA, alligator wrestling—the place seemed like the complete opposite of our city. Every television was on in Fallujah. A week of waiting for the final results.
This quie...more
Everyone waited for the American election results. Four more years meant more to us than it did to the Americans, I think. There was something about Florida and voting machines or something. I searched on the Internet Florida—swamp land, Seminole Indians, Mickey Mouse, NASA, alligator wrestling—the place seemed like the complete opposite of our city. Every television was on in Fallujah. A week of waiting for the final results.
This quie...more
Much of this novel follows two young men as they leave their homes in Fallujah in 2004 just as U.S. fores in Iraq move on the city. As Fallujah grows more chaotic in the days leading up to the U.S. assault, main character Salim decides to defect and walk to the city of Ramadi some 40 kilometers west. Though he intends to make the trip alone, he meets up with friend Khalil before leaving the city and they begin the journey together. Both worked for the insurgency in Fallujah and wonder what exact...more
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Crushed this on the MARC train. By being from the perspective of Iraqi civilians, FotF fills an important place in the literature of the America's recent wars. It is also a gripping, humane narrative that avoids overtly politicizing its subject by keeping a tight focus on Salim and Khalil, two characters who are both made relatable but also flawed enough to avoid becoming immaculate poster-children in terms of the human costs of the war.
**Slight spoiling below**
And while I wasn't in love with th...more
**Slight spoiling below**
And while I wasn't in love with th...more
I had this book for a few months and didn’t read it right away because I am dumb. I want to tell you a lot of things about the characters and how I connected with them, but that would give away the ending. I suggest traveling from Fallujah to Ramadi with Khalil and Sal. Justin Sirois wrote a beautiful story with varied points of view about two boys traveling through the Iraqi landscape. Sirois pulls the reader into the characters’ unique desires within a global conflict. Despite trying to escape...more
This is, probably, the most 'straight-forward' novel that I read this year. This isn't a bad thing, obviously, it's just mostly outside of my realm of interest normally. But I got a copy from Adam (along with Melissa's book) at the Publishing Genius table at the AWP bookfare. It's a really strong novel and offers a fascinating counter-point to the general ideology that's afflicted the current unending war.
Falcons on the Floor is a great book! Justin Sirois brings two
characters to life who live in Iraq and also live in the 21st
century, and the fact of living in a scary place has not made
them less able to be scared and has not made them less able
to love. The writing is very sharp and clear, the structure of
the book is mysterious, and characters are complex. I couldn’t
put the book down.
characters to life who live in Iraq and also live in the 21st
century, and the fact of living in a scary place has not made
them less able to be scared and has not made them less able
to love. The writing is very sharp and clear, the structure of
the book is mysterious, and characters are complex. I couldn’t
put the book down.
This book reads beautifully. It has moments of such visual clarity, that I feel I have been somewhere I hadn't known before. Sirois's prose allows this story of love and friendship to enter in slowly, and to stir there thick as honey. A fearful journey across a relentless desert, away from a besieged home, toward an unknown hope.
There's a kind leisurely gravity to Sirois's writing that is very hard to come by. The novel's plot is fantastic, following the journey of two Iraqi refugees in search of the internet, but where Sirois really shines is his treatment of the mundane. He manages to take little things... toilet paper, bottle caps, battery usage... and craft a complex and compelling friendship that you hardly believe exists before it grabs hold of you and refuses to let go. Seldom have I felt so invested in a novel's...more
Falcons on the Floor has a much straighter narrative path than the books I typically read (and give five stars too) but Sirios has done something pretty damn beautiful here, both culturally and in terms of mixing the poetic with the prose, so respect must be paid, and the book highly praised. Check it out - definitely worth the read.
This book, by genre, could be Young Adult because the protagonists, both American and Iraqi, are all in their early 20s, and the narrators are those protagonists. There may be too much profanity for it to be placed in the library recommended reading list for this summer.
The writing is excellent, and I say that as a reader who enjoys action in his fiction novels.
Read more at my blog
The writing is excellent, and I say that as a reader who enjoys action in his fiction novels.
Read more at my blog
This book, through the characters of Salim and Khalil, captures what it's like to try and keep one's life simple and small and coherent when extenuating circumstances (war, in this case) stretch it into something big and impersonal and complex. Justin Sirois and Haneen Alshujairy should be applauded for writing a war novel that isn't a sanctimonious polemic or a Dad-was-right confirmation of the status quo.
Important doesn't have to mean boring or limited. And Falcons on the Floor isn't. The storytelling is rich and full of detail. It's also something else though. A classic male debut novel, and yet, not totally, right? Because it's the classic formula transplanted and done anew.
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/09...
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/09...
I'm a partisan, I'll admit it. I love a road movie. So many things about this book opened my eyes to how much I don't understand this corner of the world that was so much of America's focus for so long. I won't pretend I all of a sudden understand it, but this was a good many steps closer through the eyes of a few young men caught in the middle of it all.
From American Book Review, Jeff Ludwig, 2012
“Falcons on the Floor is witty and darkly funny when it needs to be, and its sad and disastrous moments are perfectly timed. Sirois knows his craft.”
“Falcons on the Floor is witty and darkly funny when it needs to be, and its sad and disastrous moments are perfectly timed. Sirois knows his craft.”
Once I started reading this book, I didn't want to stop. It was great.
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