The Yellow Birds: A Novel (original 2012; edition 2012)

John has been to war. A modern war. He has returned home to the States and is not settling in well. He tells his story in pieces, a bit from now and a bit from the past. He tells his story very well in that he isnt just telling you what happened but exactly how he felt, and how it felt to be there seeing and doing the things they had to. The language is poetic and beautiful, the descriptions grab you and shake you.

I was under the mistaken impression that "modern" wars were more sterile, less dirty than old wars. That people pushed buttons to release bombs rather than walking the streets killing people. This book put me right, and I wont have to wonder why there is such a wall between returned soldiers and the people they return to. Just as with WWI and WWII, the situations these soldiers have been in are just too soul-destroying to tell their friends back home about over a coffee. Their guilt over what they witnessed and did lives on, and the adoration (if any) they get from a grateful public doesn't sit well.

This is a lovely, yet gruesome, account of a soldiers time in Iraq. And on top of all that there is also a storyline that keeps you guessing a bit, and which makes it very exciting to read. The only beef I have is the jumping about from time to time, it wasn't quite right for me ( )

An astonishing work and one that will definitely become one of the "classic" novels written about the current Middle East conflict.  Kevin Powers' prose is lean, sparse, and raw, to the point of being almost poetic. A veteran of the war himself,  He has captured in this small volume the emotions of two young soldiers trying to stay alive while serving in Iraq.   The opening lines "The war tried to kill us in the spring." set the tone.

Twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy met in boot camp.  As they graduated, Bartle promised Murphy's mother that he would take care of his friend- a promise that haunts his every moment and movement as together they struggle to make sense of the carnage around them when they are dropped into Iraq.  The scenes are bloody, graphic, and often upsetting, portraying the reality of modern warfare.

They keep count of the casualties, convinced that if they can get past the number 1000 and still be alive, then they will survive; but as the days pass, and the number climbs higher, Murphy becomes increasingly morose and out of touch with reality.  He seems to have an insight that he will not return home alive. The ensuing mental devastation Bartle endures when Murphy is killed follows him home, where life does not get better and  we see the terrible phsychological and mental toll this war is taking -- and will continue to take -- on the young men and women serving in today's armed forces and on the families who wait at home.  Only someone who has served there could ever have given us such a deep and haunting picture of this horror in such a beautifully written story. ( )

An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet, THE YELLOW BIRDS is already being hailed as a modern classic.

Everywhere John looks, he sees Murph.

He flinches when cars drive past. His fingers clasp around the rifle he hasn't held for months. Wide-eyed strangers praise him as a hero, but he can feel himself disappearing.

Back home after a year in Iraq, memories swarm around him: bodies burning in the crisp morning air. Sunlight falling through branches; bullets kicking up dust; ripples on a pond wavering like plucked strings. The promise he made, to a young man's mother, that her son would be brought home safely.

Written by "...the new war poet" Kevin Powers The Yellow Birds is a wonderfully powerful, harrowing, yet poetic account, of a young America soldier Private John Bartle serving in Iraq who befriends new recruit Daniel "Murph" Murphy.

Their fate rests with a useless lieutenant, and the soldiers' real leader, the deranged Sergeant Sterling.

The author tells the haunting story of John's war (and beyond) and all the trauma, guilt and numbness that entails.

Powerful stuff





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How can I know or think to try to understand the horror of war.
Perhaps now a bit more understanding of just a tiny fraction of what it must be and how it changes those who've faced it and 'survived' (?) in some fashion and to some degree.
Glad that I read it - perhaps it should be required. It's moving.
Rating it at "it was OK", because it's your decision. ( )

Astonishing writing! The words are like brush strokes on a canvas revealing an intricate yet disturbing work of art that one cannot but admire and continue gazing at. I would never have thought that I would be so absorbed and swept up in a story about war, and the Iraq war at that, but this book did this for me. Essentially the story of comradeship in war - Murph and Bartle; but also about PTSD in its devastatingly quieter form of character-ruination. "The war tried to kill us in the spring." is the first line of this well paced, beautifully written story. ( )