What do you think?
Rate this book
The Farther Shore
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
"We're all afraid of something, and sometimes we go about things the wrong way."
Narrated by a young soldier caught in the deadly fog of war, Eck's first novel is a harrowing exploration of contemporary warfare. "What brought you here?" is the question asked of Eck's young narrator, Joshua Stantz, from the army's 10th Mountain Division. "Accidents and intentions," is his response, the answer of a man disillusioned long before his time.
Having escaped the chaos and brutality of a hostile desert city ruled by rogue warlords, a handful of soldiers from Stantz's division realize that their only hope is to keep moving. Their odyssey is a surreal nightmare of swirling sand and flying shrapnel as they stay steps ahead of marauding gangs, warring clansmen, and pitiless mercenaries. Bewildered, plagued by the memory of home and family, not all of them will survive. Those who do will wonder why, as they try to make sense of the inexplicable. But their struggle is futile -- the rules of engagement they dutifully carry in their packs provide little information about the circumstances they face or the reason they're conscripted to this hellish place.
Haunting, evocative, stripped of sentiment and convention, The Farther Shore is a war novel second and a powerful work of literature first.
(Holiday 2007 Selection)
"We're all afraid of something, and sometimes we go about things the wrong way."
Narrated by a young soldier caught in the deadly fog of war, Eck's first novel is a harrowing exploration of contemporary warfare. "What brought you here?" is the question asked of Eck's young narrator, Joshua Stantz, from the army's 10th Mountain Division. "Accidents and intentions," is his response, the answer of a man disillusioned long before his time.
Having escaped the chaos and brutality of a hostile desert city ruled by rogue warlords, a handful of soldiers from Stantz's division realize that their only hope is to keep moving. Their odyssey is a surreal nightmare of swirling sand and flying shrapnel as they stay steps ahead of marauding gangs, warring clansmen, and pitiless mercenaries. Bewildered, plagued by the memory of home and family, not all of them will survive. Those who do will wonder why, as they try to make sense of the inexplicable. But their struggle is futile -- the rules of engagement they dutifully carry in their packs provide little information about the circumstances they face or the reason they're conscripted to this hellish place.
Haunting, evocative, stripped of sentiment and convention, The Farther Shore is a war novel second and a powerful work of literature first.
(Holiday 2007 Selection)
176 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2007
5 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
February 23, 2008
A pretty perfect first novel. A granite narration amid the chaos of a war with no clear enemies. Taut and clear sentences. I kept waiting for him to swerve out of control, but he doesn't; the distance from the author to the paper remains beautifully static, something rare in debuts. And the comparisons to Hemingway and O'Brien are not exaggerations, but the sort of oblique yet lucid narrator mostly brought to mind Camus' The Stranger. It's just a really gripping (and short) read, flying by in a sitting or two. I'd recommend it to anyone wistful for their high school classics, but at the same time want something new.
April 10, 2019
This book is as if a simple but very good short story was extended into a short novel. The characters are real, the story is tight and ungarnished which is a fitting style for the topic. It is harsh but not gratuitously so and the people in it are people that we all need to remember live - and die - in our world. Eck's voice is his own - he is in conversation with other writers of war stories and the young men so often at the center but he does not mimic them but rather speaks in a realistic voice that slides between emotions just the way one would expect a Midwesterner who finds himself halfway around the world would.
December 5, 2008
“’Bad things happen in threes,’ Clip said, to no one in particular.
‘That’s not true,’ I said.
‘Bad things just happen.'"
Thus Joshua Stantz, a G.I. from Wichita, Kansas, and author Mathew Eck’s narrating protagonist sums up Eck’s novel The Farthest Shore. Stantz’s statement doesn’t describe the novel itself, but rather what Eck inserts between its covers – an unending procession of bad things. He inserts a bleak story about a bleak episode in American military history: our misguided involvement and entanglement in African tribal warfare during the early nineties. Although Eck never mentions by name the African nation that Stantz and his comrades’ struggle through, parallels exist with Somalia where Eck served in 1993 and where over one hundred American soldiers were killed or wounded in what has become known as the Battle of Mogadishu.
Eck opens The Farthest Shore as Stantz and five members of the 10th Mountain Unit, a cold weather unit, hide on an inner city rooftop with temperatures nearing 120 degrees. The unit directs artillery and air strikes against warlords and their clans on the outskirts of this nameless, war torn city where, “aside from the clans, there was no police force or local authority in the area." Bad things begin piling up when they accidentally kill two young boys in the vacant building they occupy, which makes Stantz’s unit a target for both the clans and civilians. When they try to flee, they discover their vehicle has been stolen. So the unit hurries to a predetermined rendezvous point for helicopter retrieval where they are ambushed, and what’s left of the squad must try to work their way out of this hostile city on foot.
Eck proffers the grim realities of this modern type of war, where no formal army exists to oppose, where anyone could be the enemy. He creates an excruciating urban environment that Stantz struggles to describe: “as if the city was breathing directly into me. The thick stench of shit and piss, along with the slightly sweet smell of death, smothered me,” and “nearly everything around us was a potential source of disease and death." Eck presents his environment through the eyes of this college drop-out from Kansas, and fittingly Stantz’s voice is spartan and sparse. When Stantz ruminates, Eck keeps it simple, befitting his protagonist: “And I suspected that my sleeplessness had something to do with the way the world felt inside out, a thick sticky mess." The novel’s strongest attribute lies in the author’s depiction of this common man’s attempts to explain his uncommon circumstances.
The Farthest Shore founders, however, due to Eck’s characterization of these Americans as they face incredible hardships. Eck fails to create someone to anchor his story, someone to latch on to and for whom we can feel empathy. These men are American, but they are for the most part unlikeable and unredeemed. And even Shore’s most sympathetic character, Michael, an African hotel manager educated in the U. S., who harbors the Americans, eventually becomes one of their victims. Nearly three-quarters through, Eck launches an attempt to rehabilitate Stantz through the young man’s memories of Lura – an old girlfriend – and in moments such as a conversation about the photo of another soldier’s girl:
“She was pretty. She was wearing a green sweater, and I could almost smell it. I nodded lightly. Red hair, freckles, she could have been anyone’s girl. But she was his, and I liked that. I handed it back to him.
‘She’s beautiful.’
He took the picture back and smiled. ‘I know.'"
By then, though, Eck’s attempt to float Stantz’s rehabilitation seems just too little too late, and Shore slowly sinks under its own harrowing weight. Perhaps Eck intends to demonstrate that this kind of war saps humanity and damages soldiers like Stantz beyond redemption. If so, the product of that intent makes for exceptionally grim reading. After Stantz reaches the American lines safely, a chaplain asks him about the horrors of his ordeal:
“Do you think this is something that will stay with you?”
“’No,’ I said. ‘I’ll never remember it at all.'"
Eck makes absolutely sure that we know better, but unfortunately, we don’t care.
‘That’s not true,’ I said.
‘Bad things just happen.'"
Thus Joshua Stantz, a G.I. from Wichita, Kansas, and author Mathew Eck’s narrating protagonist sums up Eck’s novel The Farthest Shore. Stantz’s statement doesn’t describe the novel itself, but rather what Eck inserts between its covers – an unending procession of bad things. He inserts a bleak story about a bleak episode in American military history: our misguided involvement and entanglement in African tribal warfare during the early nineties. Although Eck never mentions by name the African nation that Stantz and his comrades’ struggle through, parallels exist with Somalia where Eck served in 1993 and where over one hundred American soldiers were killed or wounded in what has become known as the Battle of Mogadishu.
Eck opens The Farthest Shore as Stantz and five members of the 10th Mountain Unit, a cold weather unit, hide on an inner city rooftop with temperatures nearing 120 degrees. The unit directs artillery and air strikes against warlords and their clans on the outskirts of this nameless, war torn city where, “aside from the clans, there was no police force or local authority in the area." Bad things begin piling up when they accidentally kill two young boys in the vacant building they occupy, which makes Stantz’s unit a target for both the clans and civilians. When they try to flee, they discover their vehicle has been stolen. So the unit hurries to a predetermined rendezvous point for helicopter retrieval where they are ambushed, and what’s left of the squad must try to work their way out of this hostile city on foot.
Eck proffers the grim realities of this modern type of war, where no formal army exists to oppose, where anyone could be the enemy. He creates an excruciating urban environment that Stantz struggles to describe: “as if the city was breathing directly into me. The thick stench of shit and piss, along with the slightly sweet smell of death, smothered me,” and “nearly everything around us was a potential source of disease and death." Eck presents his environment through the eyes of this college drop-out from Kansas, and fittingly Stantz’s voice is spartan and sparse. When Stantz ruminates, Eck keeps it simple, befitting his protagonist: “And I suspected that my sleeplessness had something to do with the way the world felt inside out, a thick sticky mess." The novel’s strongest attribute lies in the author’s depiction of this common man’s attempts to explain his uncommon circumstances.
The Farthest Shore founders, however, due to Eck’s characterization of these Americans as they face incredible hardships. Eck fails to create someone to anchor his story, someone to latch on to and for whom we can feel empathy. These men are American, but they are for the most part unlikeable and unredeemed. And even Shore’s most sympathetic character, Michael, an African hotel manager educated in the U. S., who harbors the Americans, eventually becomes one of their victims. Nearly three-quarters through, Eck launches an attempt to rehabilitate Stantz through the young man’s memories of Lura – an old girlfriend – and in moments such as a conversation about the photo of another soldier’s girl:
“She was pretty. She was wearing a green sweater, and I could almost smell it. I nodded lightly. Red hair, freckles, she could have been anyone’s girl. But she was his, and I liked that. I handed it back to him.
‘She’s beautiful.’
He took the picture back and smiled. ‘I know.'"
By then, though, Eck’s attempt to float Stantz’s rehabilitation seems just too little too late, and Shore slowly sinks under its own harrowing weight. Perhaps Eck intends to demonstrate that this kind of war saps humanity and damages soldiers like Stantz beyond redemption. If so, the product of that intent makes for exceptionally grim reading. After Stantz reaches the American lines safely, a chaplain asks him about the horrors of his ordeal:
“Do you think this is something that will stay with you?”
“’No,’ I said. ‘I’ll never remember it at all.'"
Eck makes absolutely sure that we know better, but unfortunately, we don’t care.
September 23, 2024
A grim, realistic first novel (and it appears to date only novel) from Matthew Eck depicting a small group of soldiers stranded in what appears to be Mogadishu, though the name of the city is never actually declared. Eck was a soldier who served in Somalia and it seems fair to assume that the events of the novel are in some significant regard reflections of the events he saw or heard about while there.
The obvious comparison is to Hemingway, who wrote about war with a similar spartan style. Eck marches his characters from one stressful and tragic place to another as their mission goes haywire due to the accidental killing of two children and an ambush that prevents them from meeting an evacuation team at a a pre-selected location. They find themselves cut off from the army, unable to speak the local language, looking obviously out of place, and marked for death by local clans seeking revenge for the killings.
The novel flies along and can be easily read in a couple days, though it isn't exactly joyful reading, nor I guess is it intended to be. My one real criticism is that our soldier characters with whom we are supposed to identify are for the most part hard to like. If the Army treats these soldiers like cogs in its huge machine, well, the book also treats them sort of the same way. Without detracting much from the leanness of the book, we could have learned a little more about these men and how they came to be the husks they are depicted as during the present of the story.
Anyway, it should be clear that this is anything but a jingoistic rah-rah war book; it is unremittingly bleak in its outlook and by the end we can see that even the soldiers that have survived are never going to recover from the experience they have been through. It's a good book but one that most people aren't going to want to read.
The obvious comparison is to Hemingway, who wrote about war with a similar spartan style. Eck marches his characters from one stressful and tragic place to another as their mission goes haywire due to the accidental killing of two children and an ambush that prevents them from meeting an evacuation team at a a pre-selected location. They find themselves cut off from the army, unable to speak the local language, looking obviously out of place, and marked for death by local clans seeking revenge for the killings.
The novel flies along and can be easily read in a couple days, though it isn't exactly joyful reading, nor I guess is it intended to be. My one real criticism is that our soldier characters with whom we are supposed to identify are for the most part hard to like. If the Army treats these soldiers like cogs in its huge machine, well, the book also treats them sort of the same way. Without detracting much from the leanness of the book, we could have learned a little more about these men and how they came to be the husks they are depicted as during the present of the story.
Anyway, it should be clear that this is anything but a jingoistic rah-rah war book; it is unremittingly bleak in its outlook and by the end we can see that even the soldiers that have survived are never going to recover from the experience they have been through. It's a good book but one that most people aren't going to want to read.
October 19, 2020
In an unnamed, presumably African city occupied by the U.S. Army, a group of six soldiers are left behind while guarding their unit. Each has a battle partner: Heath and Fizer; Santiago and Zeller; and Cooper and the narrator, Josh Stanz. Josh and Cooper are the quiet members of the group. Cooper, a native of the occupied country who fled to America as a child with his grandparents after his parents had been murdered, is known throughout the unit for being a religious virgin devoted to a girl at home. Josh is more introspective, cursed with a nervous stomach, an active guilty conscience and a fervent desire to get home safely and make it to college. While on guard, Santiago and Zeller open fire on a group in the building, who turn out to be unarmed children. Justifiably fearing retribution, the group moves, but not before Cooper is shot by enemy fire. Cooper’s death is poignantly unceremonious and unsentimental, as is most of the novel. The soldiers debate about his remains and use his food and water, and all are forced to accept the loss with little emotion. The soldiers continue to move, occasionally linking up with locals for various purposes (in Santiago and Zeller’s cases, usually casual sex). Josh finds a brief kinship with a man named Michael, and in one conversation, they illuminate the mysteries of modern warfare—is it possible, as Josh claims, that America is actually losing lives in, and taking lives from, this country to be of help? Eventually, after collecting countless physical and emotional wounds and nearly succumbing to hunger and dehydration, the group is reunited with their compatriots, which is when they learn that they have only just been listed as missing.
October 1, 2017
Good war book about 4 that are separated from the troop and must find their way back.
March 23, 2014
Novels, indeed any entertainment media, about war tend to fall into one of two categories: the action-packed hoorah kind or the thought-provoking, realistic kind. There is a place for both. The first category is infinitely more entertaining and fulfills the glory-in-war fantasy so many of us have. The second category is not at all fun to read but is necessary to bring us back down to Earth and remind us that the lives of real people are lost in war. Matthew Eck’s debut The Farther Shore falls wholly into the second category.
This is not to say I did not enjoy the experience of reading The Farther Shore, I am saying it is not a fun book to read, nor do I believe Eck intends for it to be so. There is a tremendous amount of honesty crammed into this short book. Eck is a veteran of the United States Army and so I suspect some of the chaos and doubt expressed by the characters come from experience rather than imagination. The story reminds us that combat is a truly terrible thing, often inglorious. Death is sudden and sometimes accidental. The hoorah kind of war story puts the hero in a situation where they are mowing down scores of enemies and high-fiving their squad mates. In reality, a single incident can weigh heavily on the mind of a soldier who is put in the position of taking a life, often with devastating life-long psychological effects. Eck doesn’t sugar-coat it.
I would recommend this as mandatory reading for any person on their way to the recruiting office with a glory-in-war fantasy in their head. If after finishing the novel, they still want to sign up, I will thank them for their sacrifice and service, but I will not criticize any person who reads this book and second-guesses their decision to enlist. When I was nineteen years old, I had glory fantasies, too. Through my university’s Army ROTC program, I attended Camp Challenge at Fort Knox, Kentucky. For six weeks, I and my fellow cadets went through a truncated officer training program learning military tradition, drill, and ceremony, weapons training, field tactics, communication and leadership. During that time, I was trained to use a variety of weapons and I realized that while firing at pop-up targets is one thing, the thought of putting another human being in my sights and pulling the trigger was something I would not want to do. Camp Challenge was a no-obligation program so when I returned home, I turned in my boots and thanked Captain Wiersma for the experience. Had I read The Farther Shore first, I might found something else to do with those six weeks in the summer of 1996.
This is not to say I did not enjoy the experience of reading The Farther Shore, I am saying it is not a fun book to read, nor do I believe Eck intends for it to be so. There is a tremendous amount of honesty crammed into this short book. Eck is a veteran of the United States Army and so I suspect some of the chaos and doubt expressed by the characters come from experience rather than imagination. The story reminds us that combat is a truly terrible thing, often inglorious. Death is sudden and sometimes accidental. The hoorah kind of war story puts the hero in a situation where they are mowing down scores of enemies and high-fiving their squad mates. In reality, a single incident can weigh heavily on the mind of a soldier who is put in the position of taking a life, often with devastating life-long psychological effects. Eck doesn’t sugar-coat it.
I would recommend this as mandatory reading for any person on their way to the recruiting office with a glory-in-war fantasy in their head. If after finishing the novel, they still want to sign up, I will thank them for their sacrifice and service, but I will not criticize any person who reads this book and second-guesses their decision to enlist. When I was nineteen years old, I had glory fantasies, too. Through my university’s Army ROTC program, I attended Camp Challenge at Fort Knox, Kentucky. For six weeks, I and my fellow cadets went through a truncated officer training program learning military tradition, drill, and ceremony, weapons training, field tactics, communication and leadership. During that time, I was trained to use a variety of weapons and I realized that while firing at pop-up targets is one thing, the thought of putting another human being in my sights and pulling the trigger was something I would not want to do. Camp Challenge was a no-obligation program so when I returned home, I turned in my boots and thanked Captain Wiersma for the experience. Had I read The Farther Shore first, I might found something else to do with those six weeks in the summer of 1996.
January 18, 2008
The Farther Shore tells us the story of 6 men covertly dropped into Somalia during an American incursion to bring normalcy to the warlord-controlled country. The men run into trouble and have to find their way out of the country on foot.
I "test-drove" this book as a potential selection for my bookclub, but it didn't give me anything to sink my teeth into as far as a larger picture of the conflict or anything worth much discussion. Now I could have missed the larger picture altogether, and perhaps focused on the entertaining story of the mens' exploits, the horrors of the civilian's mob mentality, the brief flashes of kindness toward these soldiers, and their blatant disconnect from their experience (for example, wondering out loud whether a movie would be made of their adventure). That said, I enjoyed the 176 page book, it was an easy read, I NEED EASY reads these days!
Also, The Farther Shore was a LitBlog Co-op "Read This" selection. Debates over the selection, as well as many favorable reviews of the book can be found there (http://lbc.typepad.com/blog/). As I re-read the commentary accompanying the book's pick as a "Read This" selection, it is apparent that I missed some of the point of the book. Apparently they think the author is silent on the protagonist's morality, leaving it for the reader to struggle with these issues. Also, they paralleled the protagonists self-sufficiency when separated from his unit to the everyday struggles of any person who is on their own.
Ah well, worth a read.
I "test-drove" this book as a potential selection for my bookclub, but it didn't give me anything to sink my teeth into as far as a larger picture of the conflict or anything worth much discussion. Now I could have missed the larger picture altogether, and perhaps focused on the entertaining story of the mens' exploits, the horrors of the civilian's mob mentality, the brief flashes of kindness toward these soldiers, and their blatant disconnect from their experience (for example, wondering out loud whether a movie would be made of their adventure). That said, I enjoyed the 176 page book, it was an easy read, I NEED EASY reads these days!
Also, The Farther Shore was a LitBlog Co-op "Read This" selection. Debates over the selection, as well as many favorable reviews of the book can be found there (http://lbc.typepad.com/blog/). As I re-read the commentary accompanying the book's pick as a "Read This" selection, it is apparent that I missed some of the point of the book. Apparently they think the author is silent on the protagonist's morality, leaving it for the reader to struggle with these issues. Also, they paralleled the protagonists self-sufficiency when separated from his unit to the everyday struggles of any person who is on their own.
Ah well, worth a read.
February 19, 2008
War stories can be saccharine, in that they gag you with blatant, militant jingoism that crows about the glories of "brotherhood" in the face of death. War stories can also be deeply disturbing, calling into question the very essence of humanity (and whether or not we who kill each other can be called "human" after all). I wouldn't say that this book falls into either camp neatly. There's certainly no jingoism here. Instead, I'd say that by keeping the conflict nameless, it becomes a modern Everywar, representative and reminiscent of many recent conflicts (i.e. Somalia, Iraq).
The Farther Shore follows a small group of soldiers in an unnamed city in an unnamed country. The soldiers are bare in their details as well, but their humanity (for better and for worse) is readily apparent. There is needless violence and squalor here, questions raised that have no answer (and only serve to enrage us when people do try to offer one for them). These soldiers are abandoned by the military that sent them to this city, and over weeks, they attempt to make their way somewhere, anywhere other than where they are. Death is present, and it is hideous to see, but it is not a blunt instrument. Bullets are ugly but precise here, and I am left feeling grateful that I have never had to fire one myself.
I'm uncertain what to say about this short novel, other than I'm glad to have read it.
The Farther Shore follows a small group of soldiers in an unnamed city in an unnamed country. The soldiers are bare in their details as well, but their humanity (for better and for worse) is readily apparent. There is needless violence and squalor here, questions raised that have no answer (and only serve to enrage us when people do try to offer one for them). These soldiers are abandoned by the military that sent them to this city, and over weeks, they attempt to make their way somewhere, anywhere other than where they are. Death is present, and it is hideous to see, but it is not a blunt instrument. Bullets are ugly but precise here, and I am left feeling grateful that I have never had to fire one myself.
I'm uncertain what to say about this short novel, other than I'm glad to have read it.
November 4, 2008
Author Matthew Eck’s debut novel, The Farther Shore (Milkweed, 192 pages, hardcover, $22.00, 978-1-57131-057-6) opens on a rooftop in blacked-out Somalia with a squad of 10th Mountain Division soldiers operating as eyes in the ground. In other words, they’re directing the bombing of the city—not too close to the center, not too far from the edge.
When something, or someone trips the alarms they’ve left in the stairwells of the building, their descent from the building top is both physical and psychological. “I found Santiago and told him we needed to move. Then I looked down at the body. It was small for a man. Santiago bent over the figure with an unrolled compound press, the loose white ends dangling beside him. He stood and said something, but at first I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears. Then he was screaming and it came to me in slices, getting louder, then duller, until I finally got it: “They’re just kids.’”
It gets worse, much worse. The dead shark and its dead eye that washes up on the beach of the hospital after they’ve been evacuated is only one of countless lyrical images Eck uses to evoke the sense of total catastrophe that is always underfoot. A beautiful and shocking novel of war and youth.
When something, or someone trips the alarms they’ve left in the stairwells of the building, their descent from the building top is both physical and psychological. “I found Santiago and told him we needed to move. Then I looked down at the body. It was small for a man. Santiago bent over the figure with an unrolled compound press, the loose white ends dangling beside him. He stood and said something, but at first I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears. Then he was screaming and it came to me in slices, getting louder, then duller, until I finally got it: “They’re just kids.’”
It gets worse, much worse. The dead shark and its dead eye that washes up on the beach of the hospital after they’ve been evacuated is only one of countless lyrical images Eck uses to evoke the sense of total catastrophe that is always underfoot. A beautiful and shocking novel of war and youth.
August 4, 2010
If you don't like books about war that don't shy away from getting into nitty gritty details, then this isn't the book for you. I'm not sure how this book got on my to-read list but it must have intrigued me enough to overlook my confusion and pick it up at the library. The book was well-written despite the fact that I wasn't quite clear where the soldiers were located and what year this was supposedly taking place. Or why exactly the U.S. Army was in wherever they were in. These details didn't detract from the story. In fact you could say that the lack of these details only mirrors the confusion that most Americans have right now about our current "war". Where is everyone? Why are they there? What the heck is going on? What are we doing there?
This was a very honest book, written by a former Armyman, so I don't doubt much of what this book describes happened in some form or another to the author or to people he knew.
This was a very honest book, written by a former Armyman, so I don't doubt much of what this book describes happened in some form or another to the author or to people he knew.
October 24, 2014
Just as powerful as Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds, The Farther Shore is the story of what happens to our military men and women when we send them to hostile countries for reasons no one really understands.
Joshua Stantz is monitoring the bombing of a city in Somalia when things go horribly wrong. And they continue to go wrong, for how could they go anything but wrong? As Stantz and his company make their way across the warring city, searching for the army that has abandoned them, the reader is given a clear view into the hearts and minds of men thrown into a multitude of conflicts with no way to respond but through violence. Stantz is confused by his mission, his company, the Army, Somalia and her people, and more importantly, himself.
The comparison to The Yellow Birds is profound. Iraq. Somalia. It’s all the same. These books are for civilians who don’t believe PTSD is a problem for the ones who make it home.
Joshua Stantz is monitoring the bombing of a city in Somalia when things go horribly wrong. And they continue to go wrong, for how could they go anything but wrong? As Stantz and his company make their way across the warring city, searching for the army that has abandoned them, the reader is given a clear view into the hearts and minds of men thrown into a multitude of conflicts with no way to respond but through violence. Stantz is confused by his mission, his company, the Army, Somalia and her people, and more importantly, himself.
The comparison to The Yellow Birds is profound. Iraq. Somalia. It’s all the same. These books are for civilians who don’t believe PTSD is a problem for the ones who make it home.
December 2, 2009
Realistic/believable story about a squad of soldiers in Somalia(the story doesn't really this crystal clear, but you gather this is the battle of Mogadishu where an American soldiers' body was infamously dragged through the streets). The soldiers become separated and try to make their way to safety.
The story was well written and believable but my biggest problem was that there wasn't anyone in the story that you could latch onto. The central figure is unlikable and everyone else acts for distasteful, self-serving reasons. Perhaps the only worthwhile character (Cooper) takes an early exit from the story. Everyone plods through the story without any inner motivations... except basic survival.
All this points out the futility and stupidity of war, I suppose, and how it can boil people down to little more than animals. But stronger characters would have made a stronger story.
The story was well written and believable but my biggest problem was that there wasn't anyone in the story that you could latch onto. The central figure is unlikable and everyone else acts for distasteful, self-serving reasons. Perhaps the only worthwhile character (Cooper) takes an early exit from the story. Everyone plods through the story without any inner motivations... except basic survival.
All this points out the futility and stupidity of war, I suppose, and how it can boil people down to little more than animals. But stronger characters would have made a stronger story.
November 6, 2007
A group of American soldiers in a nameless African city accidently kill two children and have to survive when the city turns against them. Eck was a veteran of our adventure in Somalia. This novel (it's really more of a novella-the publishers play with the margins more than me trying to meet a page requirement in college) attempts to capture his feelings of confusion and alienation as a young soldier. Eck uses really stripped down prose, which does a good job of creating a feeling of emotional distance, but I thought it was overdone. Only the narator is even a partly drawn character, and the narrative action has no emotional impact. Still, it's an interesting read, and you can polish it off in a day or two.
July 28, 2008
War may be hell, but the wars we fight in today are a very different kind of hell than the traditional army-vs.-army wars of the past. Matthew Eck's brief, harrowing novel of war drops readers into the middle of this new kind of war. Six soldiers, one wounded perhaps mortally, are stuck in an unnamed African city in the middle of clan warfare, shifting allegiances, and unseen dangers. They have to get out, but before they can get out, they have to survive. Eck's clear, spare writing is perfect for the story at hand: just the facts, no time to brood, living day to day. And yet we feel for the soldiers, their confusion in the present, doubt about the future and guilt over the consequences of their split-second decisions.
April 23, 2008
You can't help wonder why the United States keeps sending her soldiers to fight in other countries.
Maybe other people find life cheap and she is trying to make them change their way of living. Sending her soldiers to die seems to be the answer. But then some countries do not want democracy. Is it possible there are other choices? Perhaps walk a mile in their shoes.
Where is Somalia? What was the reason for being there? How did it End? Did it end? Are we still there? If not how did we manage to get out? Maybe we could do the same in Iraq. Or if we are still there, will Iraq become the new Somolia?
The Farther Shore was a good read. check out www.milkweed.org.
Maybe other people find life cheap and she is trying to make them change their way of living. Sending her soldiers to die seems to be the answer. But then some countries do not want democracy. Is it possible there are other choices? Perhaps walk a mile in their shoes.
Where is Somalia? What was the reason for being there? How did it End? Did it end? Are we still there? If not how did we manage to get out? Maybe we could do the same in Iraq. Or if we are still there, will Iraq become the new Somolia?
The Farther Shore was a good read. check out www.milkweed.org.
November 24, 2009
From an abandoned building in the city of Mogadishu, American soldiers direct airstrikes on priority targets. After the helicopter that was to take them back to their unit came under hostile fire and was forced to abort its mission, the soldiers were left to find their way to safety through a city ruled by gangs of thieves and killers. The trip is harrowing and dangerous. The author is a veteran of the Somalia action and writes a vivid, suspense-filled account of a situation in which it was often impossible to tell friend from foe. However, if there are larger lessons to be drawn from the experience, the author fails to find them.
April 26, 2012
In this taut, harrowing novella, four young American soldiers are stranded in a war-torn city in Somalia. The story, told by one of the four, follows them as they make their escape, while death stalks them every step of the way. The rules of engagement, meant to guide their decisions, often fall far too short, and they are forced to make choices on the fly, redefining and reformulating right and wrong as they go. Survival depends finally on chance and mischance, and their journey takes them far from home along a farther shore from which few may ever fully return. Told in a raw, spare style, its vision of men at war is both grim and tender.
June 17, 2009
Gritty, and rough.
This wasn't really my cup of tea. I prefer deep character development and a long slow burn.
This wasn't an awful novel, just a bit too light on character development, but with a really jarring atmosphere.
No punches were pulled in the descriptions of what war does to the people and places it touches. If anything, the setting and people of the war were the most gripping parts of the novel ... so much so, it reduces the actual lead characters into almost after thoughts.
Just one person's opinion.
This wasn't really my cup of tea. I prefer deep character development and a long slow burn.
This wasn't an awful novel, just a bit too light on character development, but with a really jarring atmosphere.
No punches were pulled in the descriptions of what war does to the people and places it touches. If anything, the setting and people of the war were the most gripping parts of the novel ... so much so, it reduces the actual lead characters into almost after thoughts.
Just one person's opinion.
February 3, 2009
I'd probably give this book 3.5 stars if I could, but since I imagine that Eck edited the hell out of this to get to a lean 173 pages (too short or long), I'll round down. Finished this book in just a few hours (today). It genuinely captured my interest. Love how the book handled the confusion of the situation without being didactically political. Could have definitely done without the final chapter, and some cliche character elements. Dialogue could also have been better. Still, a "good read."
March 5, 2014
fictionalized (but real enough for me) account of a small group of soldiers who get separated from their command and are left to fend for themselves. It never is clear exactly where this war is taking place, but really that doesn’t matter—the (sad) drama that unfolds and the resulting emotional toll is what this small book is about. If this was a long book (in terms of pages), I wouldn’t have been able to handle the emotional context. 2007 Milkweed Winner hardback via Inter-Library Loan (Jessamine County) from Madison County Public Library, Berea; 176 pgs.; read Mar. 2014/#20
October 13, 2008
War is one of the only ways the most of us would ever lose friends and allies to sniper fire and aerial bombs. And sure enough, In Matthew Eck's, The Farther Shore, just as one unit is separated from its command in a hostile city, the unit suffers ethical and moral losses. And one by one, Fizer, Heath, Cooper, and Zeller fall to enemy fire. Stantz and Santiago, make it out alive, but their lives will never be the same.
January 7, 2008
I received a review copy of this book this weekend and read it in one night. It is a brilliant first book. He is being compared to Tim O’Brien—I am sure b/c of the context of the book but there’s an element of clarity in Eck’s book that I did not find in O’Brien’s earlier work. He’s definitely a new writer to watch.
November 11, 2008
Several of my nephews have served in the Middle East. This book shares the challenges faced by our military in that area. The characters were well developed, and I quickily turned page after page until I was finished. On Veteran's Day, I'd like to thank all who have served to keep our country free!!
Read
January 19, 2009Not sure what it means to be the "first great war novel of our generation". The book chronicles the lives of a few soldiers told from vantage point of one of the survivors. They we in a somalian city and left for dead when an exstraction fails to rescue them. It is a short novel, you can read it in a day.
October 10, 2016
A war story that in some ways explores how people can lose their humanity and moral compass in times of war. I think my complaint is it felt like Eck could have done more to explore the meaning of his experience, rather than making it essentially a recounting of one grueling month. Hard to stomach for many reasons.
June 23, 2008
I think this book merits two and a half stars. It's action sequences are well written and engaging, but the plot is far from original and the story is very depressing. Decent and worth the read, but rather grim.
October 16, 2008
The events in this short novel take place in a nightmarish sort of setting where a group of young soldiers separated from the others try to survive in a strange city. The contrast of realistic dialog and surrealistic setting and events make war seem even more terrible and useless.
November 6, 2008
Tim O'Brien is the novelist who is best known for his war novels. Now we have Matthew Eck doing a more contemporary version that is comparable in quality to O'Brien.
A lovely and moving little book.
A lovely and moving little book.
April 16, 2015
While I appreciated the glimpse into the fog of current warfare, I think I wanted more of a connection with the characters. I did think it was well written in that it put me smack dab in the place and time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews