Jesse Goolsby

Reading Jesse Goolsby's ACCELERATION HOURS is a fascinating glimpse into one man's thoughts about the effects of being a career military officer in these times of the "forever wars." (And yes, Dexter Filkins' book gets a nod here too.) The book is an artfully assembled paste-up - mashup? - of fictional short stories and fragments of memoir that kept me turning pages deep into the night. There are twenty short pieces here. And from the opening story of a stepfather's conflicted feelings over the loss of his stepson to the Iraq war ("Anchor & Knife"), to the final story of another father, who suffers from PTSD (Afghanistan) and guilt over losing custody of his daughter ("The Price of Everything"), the thread that holds them all together is war in all its violent incarnations, and its far-reaching and long-lasting effects. "Tendons" is especially disturbing in its description of a rag-tag militia group in northern California being covered by an embedded journalist, who has his own disturbing memories of his short-lived affair with a suicide bomber in Chechnya. In "Sometimes Kids Bleed for No Reason" another Iraq veteran, and father, is tortured by a memory of a little girl in Ramadi, telling himself, "You don't haunt me." The story, "God's Zipper," reads like fiction, but is probably, at least partially, autobiographical - about Caleb, a pilot friend he went through survival training with in the Rocky Mountains, and who now flies an A-10 over Afghanistan and, guilt-ridden over the airborne carnage he inflicts, is addicted to "go pills" and "no-go pills" (Dexedrine and Ambien), and calls Jesse at all hours to talk football.

But the two pieces I think I enjoyed the most here are the most obviously autobiographical ones: "Waiting for Red Dawn" and "Why I Listen to My Children Breathe." In the first, Goolsby tells us -

"I'm an English professor and an Air Force officer. I'm also in charge of the anti-terrorism training at my school [the USAF Academy]. It's an odd combination. I speak the virtues of Shakespeare, and I educate students and faculty on what to do if we have a shooter in our midst. Here are the answers: 1. Hide 2. Lacking an appropriate hiding place, do anything to survive."

The title for this piece comes, of course, from the 1984 Patrick Swayze film, RED DAWN, which Goolsby remembers vividly from his youth, as well as his father's fascination with guns. As an Air Force officer, he is also well aware of nuclear silos placed in various remote areas of our country, and remains haunted by the possible threat of nuclear war and foreign invasions (like those Russian paratroopers in RED DAWN). He has bought some undeveloped, remote acreage in the mountains, where he takes his family to camp on occasion, and tells us of one night -

"... after the kids go down, the stars blast out like goddamn spotlights because we're so close, and we look around us, and, Jesus, if this isn't the best place you could be during an invasion."

But that second piece - "Why I Listen to My Children Breathe" - is for me the most meaningful, the funniest, and the most profound of the whole collection. It begins with a kinda funny, maybe even hilarious, description of his vasectomy, complete with a disturbing "Oops" from an intern assisting in the surgery. I had to laugh, because, yup, I had something very similar happen to me - caused me to sit right up straight on the operating table. So yeah, I laughed, out loud. And then there are the required sperm samples to be brought in later - "fresh" samples - to be sure the operation "took." Which leads to Goolsby telling us more about his Mormon adolescence and the sin of Onan. And about his dad's reaction to hearing of Jesse's vasectomy, which made me remember Archie Bunker's comment about the Meathead's procedure, which, if I remember correctly, was something like, "Eww! Just like da family dawg!" But then it becomes more serious, with meditations on near-misses with his children's lives, and the times his wife and kids hadn't come home on time, and all the machinations that the mind goes through, "the murmurs of worst case what-ifs," and what he would do. There are also guilty feelings, wondering about his motives - if any - for wanting to be a father -

"I realize Sarah wants this more than I do, or at least is more serious about it. I want to be a dad, but I'm not sure why except that I think I'd be a good father."

A close friend questions him about why anyone wants to be a father, running through the pros and cons. What Goolsby finally decides, and it works for me, is "I just want someone to remember me."

There is a lot in this collection about fatherhood, and my conclusion is this: Don't worry, Jesse. You're not just a good father. You're the best. And, on top of that, you're a damn fine writer too. I loved your novel, I'D WALK WITH MY FRIENDS IF I COULD FIND THEM, and this new book? It is filled with humor and hard-won wisdom. I loved it. My highest recommendation. (Oh, and P.S. In reading this book, I was occasionally reminded of another book, a memoir by Donald Anderson, GATHERING NOISE FROM MY LIFE. Like Goolsby, Anderson was also a faculty member at the USAF Academy in Colorado.)

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (mehr)

This work isn't really a novel; rather it's a collection of short stories that span many decades and link the lives of three soldiers: Dax, Armando, and Wintric. Goolsby presents their childhoods, their time serving together in the Army in Afghanistan, and their coming home to marry and start families. The snapshot stories sometimes bridge years and sometimes leave blank spaces. I'm glad I read it, glad I met these men and absorbed this frank, vivid prose. Most interesting was to see what snapshots the author chooses to define his characters and his themes.

I avoid fiction in which the point-of-view characters are serving or have served in our military unless the author has served him/herself. Not that one necessarily has to experience a thing in order to write fiction, but I've encountered too many novels with an agenda that disrespects members of the military. I picked up this book because the author is a U.S. Air Force officer. There's a strong and aching honesty in these characters. So much of the story shows the effects of a single moment or minute or day or year: war itself (specifically a war without clear goals); the decision to kill to survive and the second-guessing after it; the devastation of sexual assault; the expectations that loved ones can place on a person's healing process; the difficulty of communicating anything when so much exists inside one's head that can't be communicated.

As for craft, there's some head-hopping, mostly in the first few stories. The dialogue is realistic, though not really individualized for the characters. The point of view maintains a bit of distance, sometimes casting forward with a paragraph or two of omniscient "someday he will ..." or "he doesn't know now, but ..." This keeps us from existing in the moment with the characters, but it seems intentional and works overall.

I hated some of the events in this book, but clearly Goolsby intended me to. It would have earned four stars anyway, if not for the end. The conclusion of Dax's story is not only disturbing but also confusing, too much left unexplained (something I rarely say about fiction; I don't like explanatory prose). The conclusions for Armando and Wintric are moving and sad. And too hopeless for me. I don't doubt I'm supposed to feel about this book exactly the way I feel about it, and Goolsby is an adept writer who can evoke simultaneous sympathy and frustration. But hope is a thing I look for in fiction--whether hinted at for the future or achieved on the page. The places we leave each story don't seem to look toward hope for these men, which will keep me from reading the book again.

Three stars for an artful collection of stories that will make the reader ponder, that shows experience in minute, gritty detail and doesn't let the reader look away.… (mehr)

I'D WALK WITH MY FRIENDS IF I COULD FIND THEM, by Jesse Goolsby.

Goolsby's debut novel may well stand as one of the best novels yet to come out of the war in Afghanistan, which seems a bit strange, since the war itself occupies a very small part of the narrative. Because character is king in this beautifully written work of fiction. Instead of a lengthy full-frontal look at the random violence of our continuing war (occupation?) in Afghanistan, we are given an intimate glimpse into the lives of three young men who were 'victimized' and deeply affected by it.

I knew from the book's very first line that Wintric Ellis, with his "size 8 boot" would not come away unharmed, and, despite the best efforts of his two new friends, Torres and Dax, to look after him, he does not. Raised fatherless in a small Northern California sawmill town, the army was a way out for Wintric, but the trauma he suffers in Afghanistan sends him quickly back home to a twisted and tortured post-war existence. Torres, a Colorado boy raised Mormon on the very doorsteps of Fort Carson and the Air Force Academy, is also marked forever by the war, to the extent that is terrified to touch his daughters. And Big Dax, an awkward, oversized product of New Jersey, survives the war only to land in a wheel chair, the victim of a hit and run driver.

This story of three comrades and their lives pre- and post-war, brought to mind a book I read more than fifty years ago, Erich Maria Remarque's THREE COMRADES. The settings and the time are vastly different, of course, but the pain-filled confusion of lives lived in the aftermath of war are very similar.

Some readers may complain that Goolsby's novel is not really about the war. But they will be wrong. War, once experienced, never really goes away for the young men and women who have been a part of it. It becomes a part of who they are, who they become; and its consequences and effects are long-lasting and far-reaching. Which explains the lengthy and detailed segments about the spouses and children of these three forever-damaged men.

Not since reading Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya's THE WATCH, or Kevin Powers' THE YELLOW BIRDS, have I been so caught up in a novel about the current wars. Jesse Goolsby is a damn fine writer. Very highly recommended.… (mehr)