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Zone Rouge
We are démineurs. We dismantle bombs.
Ferrand Martin and his team of démineurs spend their days in the ruined fields of Zone Rouge on the periphery of Verdun, France where they clean up the artillery and explosives used in World War I. One bullet, one bit of shrapnel, one bomb at a time. The work, they say, is not measured in days, months, or years, but in generations. It’s taken a century to get this far, and it will take many more centuries to complete.
One morning, a routine call to pick up a half-buried artillery shell turns out to be much more than just a single they discover a human skeleton, fully intact. Ferrand and his fellow démineurs dig deep into poisoned soil to reveal the past is rarely ever distant from the present.
This startling discovery kicks off a series of events that sees the usually desolate Zone Rouge teem with activity as academics, politicians, and locals all wrangle over the legacy of the War and what it means to remember. Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our modern anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.
"In the way only the best anti-war literature does, Plunkett immerses us in the lasting consequences of humanity's old, ruinous lie..." –Matt Gallagher, author of DAYBREAK
Ferrand Martin and his team of démineurs spend their days in the ruined fields of Zone Rouge on the periphery of Verdun, France where they clean up the artillery and explosives used in World War I. One bullet, one bit of shrapnel, one bomb at a time. The work, they say, is not measured in days, months, or years, but in generations. It’s taken a century to get this far, and it will take many more centuries to complete.
One morning, a routine call to pick up a half-buried artillery shell turns out to be much more than just a single they discover a human skeleton, fully intact. Ferrand and his fellow démineurs dig deep into poisoned soil to reveal the past is rarely ever distant from the present.
This startling discovery kicks off a series of events that sees the usually desolate Zone Rouge teem with activity as academics, politicians, and locals all wrangle over the legacy of the War and what it means to remember. Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our modern anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.
"In the way only the best anti-war literature does, Plunkett immerses us in the lasting consequences of humanity's old, ruinous lie..." –Matt Gallagher, author of DAYBREAK
250 pages, Hardcover
Published September 2, 2025
17 people are currently reading
322 people want to read
About the author
Michael Jerome Plunkett
1 book11 followersMichael Jerome Plunkett served in the Marine Corps and is a former EMT. He is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Literature of War Foundation and host of The LitWar Podcast. His writing has appeared in Wrath-Bearing Tree, The War Horse, Leatherneck Magazine, and other publications. Zone Rouge is his debut novel.
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May 29, 2025While not exuding literariness exactly, I found the novel fascinating for its depiction of war ecologies. I recently attended a workshop on political ecology, where one presenter discussed the durational effects of "blasted landscapes" produced by war. Interestingly, the presenter discussed the war in Bosnia and its minefields. The novel's themes overlapped in an incredible feat of synchronicity. Furthermore, I learned that Bosnia actually exports demining knowledge, which resonates with the narrative. In terms of war ecologies, the novel effectively depicts the effects on not only humans, but also the non-human and more-than-human environments. The novel opens with a cow dying from eating too much shrapnel. There are also pertinent passages about trees and forests related to the more-than-human turn in the humanities. I certainly plan to return to the novel for a paper or two that I intend to write.
June 4, 2025
Wow! Plunkett knocks it out of the park with this debut novel. I loved it. The story sucked me in and I couldn’t wait to see where it was going to take me. Obviously well researched. I learned a lot about the city of Verdun and its history during WW1 and the aftermath (an amazing story itself). I loved how the author uses this history to tell this story. The characters come alive with such well written dialogue (I can’t stand poorly written dialogue). I’m very impressed and enjoyed the read. Looking forward to reading future books by Plunkett. I may even reread this one sooner than later. Well done!
September 18, 2025
The debut novel “Zone Rouge” by Michael Jerome Plunkett will blow you away. See what I did there? It’s a book about unexploded ordinance from World War One in Verdun, France. I’m not sure what I expected when I picked this one up, but I for sure didn’t anticipate how beautifully written it was. This is not just a novel about the aftermath of warfare, no this is literature of the highest degree. I suspect—and hope—it will grow far beyond the authors intent. It’s brilliant. The characters are believable, the plot keeps you engaged, and looming on the periphery is the ever present cost of a century old war still taking lives in the modern era. I’m most impressed by the volume of research that must have gone into this work. Plunkett isn’t from France, and if I read it correctly, had only visited Verdun once or twice. The nuance of the towns and troubles revolving around unexploded artillery and other implements of war were written with the expertise of a native and a historian. Well done! I highly recommend.
October 3, 2025
Plunkett’s debut novel is fantastic. He plays with multiple themes that have heavy meaning but he cleverly writes it in a tone that keeps it light and digestible. The themes I picked up are that the remnants of war last far longer than the war itself and have an non-predicting impact on communities and individuals, you have a choice in deciding what matters to you and how you interact with it, and enduring something is meaningful and can provide solace.
The characters and settings are believable and appealing. There’s no doubt that there was an immense amount of research, whether that’s academic or lived-experience, that went into this book.
Do yourself a favor and read this book, then share it with everyone you know.
The characters and settings are believable and appealing. There’s no doubt that there was an immense amount of research, whether that’s academic or lived-experience, that went into this book.
Do yourself a favor and read this book, then share it with everyone you know.
September 30, 2025
Exceptional. Zone Rouge is a novel about the infinite aftermath of war. It follows the deminers who are the last professional soldiers of WWI as they continue to excavate bombs and bones a century later. The novel is also a portrait of how war affects a community like Verdun, literally and metaphysically.
Plunkett uses a mixed structure of short after-action reports from the deminers and academics involved in the battlefield cleanup along with chapters that form a longer narrative focused a town mayor and a lead deminer. There is dark humor, pathos, and tragedy. The opening chapter about a French rancher who plunges his cows stomach with a magentic pole is gripping and the rest of the novel is as descriptive and propulsive. Plunkett deftly weaves between macro analysis and focusing on the personal question of how someone can find purpose in an insane job—Martin’s the deminer’s story (particularly the crescendo pays homage to finding individual purpose in what seems Sisyphean.
Of course a lot of novels explore these themes and more than enough feature war. What makes Zone Rouge unique is the way it confronts the trauma’s seemingly endless duration. Plunkett also writes with a modern cynicism (probably informed by his own service) that spotlights the ways myth continues to pervert tragedy and exploits the trauma war causes, even generations later.
Plunkett uses a mixed structure of short after-action reports from the deminers and academics involved in the battlefield cleanup along with chapters that form a longer narrative focused a town mayor and a lead deminer. There is dark humor, pathos, and tragedy. The opening chapter about a French rancher who plunges his cows stomach with a magentic pole is gripping and the rest of the novel is as descriptive and propulsive. Plunkett deftly weaves between macro analysis and focusing on the personal question of how someone can find purpose in an insane job—Martin’s the deminer’s story (particularly the crescendo pays homage to finding individual purpose in what seems Sisyphean.
Of course a lot of novels explore these themes and more than enough feature war. What makes Zone Rouge unique is the way it confronts the trauma’s seemingly endless duration. Plunkett also writes with a modern cynicism (probably informed by his own service) that spotlights the ways myth continues to pervert tragedy and exploits the trauma war causes, even generations later.
September 2, 2025
War is devastating. To the land where the fighting takes place, to the frail bodies and minds of the combatants. The Red Zone (aka Zone Rouge) is a region of north eastern France so environmentally damaged by the First World War that the area was restricted from permanent settlement. As the years have gone by, bodies have been gathered and buried, shrapnel, explosives, gas shells and the detritus of war rework their way to the surface, known as the iron harvest. Michael Jerome Plunkett's Zone Rouge is a dual fictional narrative, with choral interludes about lives lived in this zone.
At opening, we are shown the difficulties of life in the zone, as it details a farmer using magnets to remove metal shards from the stomachs of his cows. From their we meet the group of Demineurs (de-miners) whose lives are spent disarming and gathering the century old explosives. They are lead by Ferrand Martin, a figure with a tragic past whose health is failing. The other 'main' character is Hugo LaFleur, the 'mayor' (an honorary title), seeking to revitalize the area through connections and growth of business, he is also a serial philanderer, seemingly unable to meet a women without pursuing her. And he is married with two children. These two stories are inter cut with short entries about the work of the Demineurs narrated by the collective 'we' and entries from academics or researchers.
Philosophically it offers much in consideration of the effects of war, the struggle to rebuild what was lost or destroyed. Ferrand's narrative is very depressed, considering the value of life and how a day to day job can at least provide a sense of momentum, but the loss of it leaves one unmoored. His tragic past is hinted at, and eventually revealed, but seems surprisingly clumsy. Would one really be so careless, especially knowing full well the risks?
Hugo's narrative, which at best serves as a contrast to Ferrand, seems purposefully stereo typically male. A striver out to gain the most, selfish of his time and forever seeking conquests. He does not respond well to no, and perhaps this reflects his inner dithering and weak feelings when confronted with more traditionally robust male figures, like the demienurs. Hugo is very much the weakest part of Zone Rouge .
A book that could leave one thoughtful to consider their own legacy, the main plot ably serves to make one consider the weight of history and how that time lingers in both the body and mind.
Recommended to readers of historical fiction, psychological effects of war or the male in fiction.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
At opening, we are shown the difficulties of life in the zone, as it details a farmer using magnets to remove metal shards from the stomachs of his cows. From their we meet the group of Demineurs (de-miners) whose lives are spent disarming and gathering the century old explosives. They are lead by Ferrand Martin, a figure with a tragic past whose health is failing. The other 'main' character is Hugo LaFleur, the 'mayor' (an honorary title), seeking to revitalize the area through connections and growth of business, he is also a serial philanderer, seemingly unable to meet a women without pursuing her. And he is married with two children. These two stories are inter cut with short entries about the work of the Demineurs narrated by the collective 'we' and entries from academics or researchers.
Philosophically it offers much in consideration of the effects of war, the struggle to rebuild what was lost or destroyed. Ferrand's narrative is very depressed, considering the value of life and how a day to day job can at least provide a sense of momentum, but the loss of it leaves one unmoored. His tragic past is hinted at, and eventually revealed, but seems surprisingly clumsy. Would one really be so careless, especially knowing full well the risks?
Hugo's narrative, which at best serves as a contrast to Ferrand, seems purposefully stereo typically male. A striver out to gain the most, selfish of his time and forever seeking conquests. He does not respond well to no, and perhaps this reflects his inner dithering and weak feelings when confronted with more traditionally robust male figures, like the demienurs. Hugo is very much the weakest part of Zone Rouge .
A book that could leave one thoughtful to consider their own legacy, the main plot ably serves to make one consider the weight of history and how that time lingers in both the body and mind.
Recommended to readers of historical fiction, psychological effects of war or the male in fiction.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
July 3, 2025
I closed this book with so many more questions than answers - a mark of truly great literature! Plunkett managed to have me second-guessing my assumptions about war and remembrance - quite an achievement considering how passionately I feel about both. A reimagining of the myth of Sisyphus, the novel is a brilliant commentary on how human society interacts with war. Its final crescendo took my breath away (and evoked one of my favorite classics of all time which I won’t name because *spoilers*). I finished unsure of whether to feel hopeful or cynical, but certain that I will be visiting this book and its many layers once more. I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface with this one.
October 5, 2025
War is futile. Why on earth do we keep doing it? It’s the one thing that reminds me that human progress is not the linear thing of Western imagination but rather something closer to the circles and spirals of African cosmologies. And then the worst thing, which is what this book is about, is the aftermath: all the stuff we leave behind in the earth, the unexploded ordnance poisoning the land—in *Zone Rouge*, the aftermath of the First World War in Verdun, France. The endless work of the démineurs there. The futile-feeling work of generations.
*Zone Rouge* has wonderfully memorable characters: Ferrand, one of these modern-day Sisyphuses, until he collapses on the job; Hugo, the rather smarmy mayor and philandering man who takes an oddly earnest interest in Hugo’s welfare; the Greek chorus of the démineurs, wearied by their thankless task but determined to do as much as they can, and who knows when the work itself may take them out; and then the land, the many, many little hills of Verdun, stripped of normal life and full of bones and bombs. Ferrand is the wonderful hero of the novel, an ordinary man who has found his life’s purpose and is committed right to the end.
Although this is indeed a novel with a plot (things do happen to the characters), it’s a meditation on war, and a jeremiad. Wars don’t end when a ceasefire is declared, and the particular brutality and futility of the Battle of Verdun is at the centre of *Zone Rouge*.
What is it all for? Why are young lives wasted, the bones of unidentified young soldiers forgotten in the earth or piled up in ossuaries, an impossible number of them, so many that only some fraction is on view and the rest are in piles in the basement? The relatives of these young men never finding full closure? And for a hundred more years the land must continue to be cleared, remaining poisoned for perhaps hundreds more.
*Zone Rouge* is immersive and quietly but powerfully persuasive. Plunkett is extremely effective in making real the terrible tedium and toll of both the work of the démineurs, and also the war that made their task necessary. This is a brilliant and important book. Thank you to Unnamed Press for DRC access.
*Zone Rouge* has wonderfully memorable characters: Ferrand, one of these modern-day Sisyphuses, until he collapses on the job; Hugo, the rather smarmy mayor and philandering man who takes an oddly earnest interest in Hugo’s welfare; the Greek chorus of the démineurs, wearied by their thankless task but determined to do as much as they can, and who knows when the work itself may take them out; and then the land, the many, many little hills of Verdun, stripped of normal life and full of bones and bombs. Ferrand is the wonderful hero of the novel, an ordinary man who has found his life’s purpose and is committed right to the end.
Although this is indeed a novel with a plot (things do happen to the characters), it’s a meditation on war, and a jeremiad. Wars don’t end when a ceasefire is declared, and the particular brutality and futility of the Battle of Verdun is at the centre of *Zone Rouge*.
What is it all for? Why are young lives wasted, the bones of unidentified young soldiers forgotten in the earth or piled up in ossuaries, an impossible number of them, so many that only some fraction is on view and the rest are in piles in the basement? The relatives of these young men never finding full closure? And for a hundred more years the land must continue to be cleared, remaining poisoned for perhaps hundreds more.
*Zone Rouge* is immersive and quietly but powerfully persuasive. Plunkett is extremely effective in making real the terrible tedium and toll of both the work of the démineurs, and also the war that made their task necessary. This is a brilliant and important book. Thank you to Unnamed Press for DRC access.
August 9, 2025
The Battle of Verdun ended on December 18, 1916. Millions of artillery and gas shells had been fired over the course of the nine-month battle. We don’t know how many people were killed during the battle because so many of the dead were never found and recovered. Estimates of wounded and dead are in the hundreds of thousands. One hundred and nine years later, land around Verdun and other World War I battle sites still contains unexploded ordnance, human remains, and poison. Historian Christina Holstein estimates that it will take at least 300 years to clean up just the Verdun battle site. In Zone Rouge, Michael Jerome Plunkett creates dueling portraits of two men who live in Verdun, whose lives metaphorically explode for good and ill...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
October 16, 2025
Real Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: We are démineurs. We dismantle bombs.
Ferrand Martin and his team of démineurs spend their days in the ruined fields of Zone Rouge on the periphery of Verdun, France where they clean up the artillery and explosives used in World War I. One bullet, one bit of shrapnel, one bomb at a time. The work, they say, is not measured in days, months, or years, but in generations. It’s taken a century to get this far, and it will take many more centuries to complete.
One morning, a routine call to pick up a half-buried artillery shell turns out to be much more than just a single they discover a human skeleton, fully intact. Ferrand and his fellow démineurs dig deep into poisoned soil to reveal the past is rarely ever distant from the present.
This startling discovery kicks off a series of events that sees the usually desolate Zone Rouge teem with activity as academics, politicians, and locals all wrangle over the legacy of the War and what it means to remember. Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our modern anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: The real Red Zone, northeastern France, is still...107 years after the Armistice on 11/11/18...unavailable for human habitation, so damaged by and so dangerous from munitions and chemicals used during the battles of the day that it is still polluting the soil, the air, the water...there are areas where arsenic makes up 18% of the soil by weight in the 21st century.
The devastation has led to the abandonment of the area as a productive landscape. The démineurs ...this is a real job, there are hundreds of these men working the "Iron Harvest" from both the 20th century's great wars...have greater risks for some cancers, greater risk, obviously, of fatal accidents as is expected for those working with unexploded ordnance.
An expansion of the myth of Sisyphus, a kind of riposte to the great classic All Quiet on the Western Front, the idea of the story is the unending price paid for war. As long as most of us have never heard of the Zone Rouge, which..be honest...you hadn't before now, the consequences of stupid people wielding too much power are kept out of sight-out of mind. So reading the quotidian struggles of those who, for the sake of a job, clean up their grandparents' and great-grands' messes. To their own occasionally lethal detriment.
No matter the side, no matter the divide, no matter the outcome, the planet we depend on for our existence and are highly unlikely to stop needing for that suffers fro our greed and fecklessness. In the end we will pay for our actions, are beginning to pay for our actions even now. The author is (per his Goodreads bio) a former member of the "...Marine Corps and is a former EMT. He is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Literature of War Foundation and host of The LitWar Podcast. His writing has appeared in Wrath-Bearing Tree, The War Horse, Leatherneck Magazine, and other publications." With that CV, one can see why this is the subject he chose for his debut novel. A laser focus on the tangible costs of war has clearly guided the gentleman's course in adulthood. The reason the book is easy to read is in his ability to see the men, the actual uniform-wearing people, in the story. It gives the story its immediacy. The weakest part of this narrative is the man who runs a town in the Zone Rouge, who dreams of rebuilding it (in his own image of it, of course) in spite of hurdles both practical...aresenic-poisoned soil and unexploded ordnance do not say "bring the family to live here!"...and bureaucratic. The French government does not want the terrible optics of dead kids who played with a mine to go viral, nor does the rewilding of the areas most impacted strike them as a bad thing. Pripyat, in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, is undergoing this process as well, and it's definitely having an impact on the natural world that the disaster seemed to preclude. We as a species need to learn from these terrible events, learn how best to fix the carnage we've wrought on the planet's other inhabitants. The reason Hugo, the "mayor," doesn't come off well is he is an archetype of end-stage capitalism's obscene valorization of greed, selfishness, and self-interest.
As I suspect that was the author's intent, I take no exception to Hugo's horribleness. I take mild exception to Ferrand, our main character's, Boy-Scouty, libertarian ways. That's a fast way to enable fascism's rise, as we're seeing now...so no, no fifth star on this story.
That does not mean I was not very pleased to read this book. I was engaged throughout, I was educated by the story's reason for existing...I'm one who hadn't clocked the existence of the titular zone...and I thoroughly appreciated the author's deftness at refining and re-presenting Sisyphus for this climate-changing, cleaning-up century.
The Publisher Says: We are démineurs. We dismantle bombs.
Ferrand Martin and his team of démineurs spend their days in the ruined fields of Zone Rouge on the periphery of Verdun, France where they clean up the artillery and explosives used in World War I. One bullet, one bit of shrapnel, one bomb at a time. The work, they say, is not measured in days, months, or years, but in generations. It’s taken a century to get this far, and it will take many more centuries to complete.
One morning, a routine call to pick up a half-buried artillery shell turns out to be much more than just a single they discover a human skeleton, fully intact. Ferrand and his fellow démineurs dig deep into poisoned soil to reveal the past is rarely ever distant from the present.
This startling discovery kicks off a series of events that sees the usually desolate Zone Rouge teem with activity as academics, politicians, and locals all wrangle over the legacy of the War and what it means to remember. Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our modern anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: The real Red Zone, northeastern France, is still...107 years after the Armistice on 11/11/18...unavailable for human habitation, so damaged by and so dangerous from munitions and chemicals used during the battles of the day that it is still polluting the soil, the air, the water...there are areas where arsenic makes up 18% of the soil by weight in the 21st century.
The devastation has led to the abandonment of the area as a productive landscape. The démineurs ...this is a real job, there are hundreds of these men working the "Iron Harvest" from both the 20th century's great wars...have greater risks for some cancers, greater risk, obviously, of fatal accidents as is expected for those working with unexploded ordnance.
An expansion of the myth of Sisyphus, a kind of riposte to the great classic All Quiet on the Western Front, the idea of the story is the unending price paid for war. As long as most of us have never heard of the Zone Rouge, which..be honest...you hadn't before now, the consequences of stupid people wielding too much power are kept out of sight-out of mind. So reading the quotidian struggles of those who, for the sake of a job, clean up their grandparents' and great-grands' messes. To their own occasionally lethal detriment.
No matter the side, no matter the divide, no matter the outcome, the planet we depend on for our existence and are highly unlikely to stop needing for that suffers fro our greed and fecklessness. In the end we will pay for our actions, are beginning to pay for our actions even now. The author is (per his Goodreads bio) a former member of the "...Marine Corps and is a former EMT. He is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Literature of War Foundation and host of The LitWar Podcast. His writing has appeared in Wrath-Bearing Tree, The War Horse, Leatherneck Magazine, and other publications." With that CV, one can see why this is the subject he chose for his debut novel. A laser focus on the tangible costs of war has clearly guided the gentleman's course in adulthood. The reason the book is easy to read is in his ability to see the men, the actual uniform-wearing people, in the story. It gives the story its immediacy. The weakest part of this narrative is the man who runs a town in the Zone Rouge, who dreams of rebuilding it (in his own image of it, of course) in spite of hurdles both practical...aresenic-poisoned soil and unexploded ordnance do not say "bring the family to live here!"...and bureaucratic. The French government does not want the terrible optics of dead kids who played with a mine to go viral, nor does the rewilding of the areas most impacted strike them as a bad thing. Pripyat, in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, is undergoing this process as well, and it's definitely having an impact on the natural world that the disaster seemed to preclude. We as a species need to learn from these terrible events, learn how best to fix the carnage we've wrought on the planet's other inhabitants. The reason Hugo, the "mayor," doesn't come off well is he is an archetype of end-stage capitalism's obscene valorization of greed, selfishness, and self-interest.
As I suspect that was the author's intent, I take no exception to Hugo's horribleness. I take mild exception to Ferrand, our main character's, Boy-Scouty, libertarian ways. That's a fast way to enable fascism's rise, as we're seeing now...so no, no fifth star on this story.
That does not mean I was not very pleased to read this book. I was engaged throughout, I was educated by the story's reason for existing...I'm one who hadn't clocked the existence of the titular zone...and I thoroughly appreciated the author's deftness at refining and re-presenting Sisyphus for this climate-changing, cleaning-up century.
July 8, 2025
The novel follows various characters involved in the clean-up of the Zone Rouge, an area in France contaminated by ordnance from WWII.
The book opens with a chapter told in the collective voice of the démineurs as they describe their work. A man uses a magnet to remove steel from the stomachs of his cattle. I thought this chapter was easily the strongest part of the novel. The voice it developed was really eerie and striking, and I was looking forward to more. However, the novel moves into a more conventional narrative, split between various characters.
Mostly, we follow the mayor and a single démineur, Martin, as the full skeleton of someone who may be a WWI soldier is discovered in the Zone. This discovery seems to be the focal point of the novel. However, I felt like the chapters became a series of alternating, loosely connected short-stories that were just about linked by this. I suppose the discovery of the skeleton and the subsequent attempts to identify it are meant to show an attempt to impose order on chaos. Having so many voices seems to be a way to depict life in teeming, expansive confusion, countered with the indifference and silence of death and history. To be honest, though, so many voices in a relatively short book makes the narrative feel undercooked at times. And they spend a lot of their chapters monologuing about the effects of war. So much so that at times I wondered if the author even trusted the reader to get the point. Less of that and more time spent in their actual lives would have been great.
The writing was far stronger during Martin’s chapters. Behind the first second-person chapter, these were my favourite. I think the novel would have been much stronger had it focused on him. I sensed that the author had a real affection for him, and this came through in the prose. His story feels resonant with what’s happening in the book and I would have liked to read more from him.
Overall, I found the themes of environmental destruction leaching into the lives of the people who live there, and the imbrication of history into the present, interesting. I just think the plot and characters needed a bit more weight.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
The book opens with a chapter told in the collective voice of the démineurs as they describe their work. A man uses a magnet to remove steel from the stomachs of his cattle. I thought this chapter was easily the strongest part of the novel. The voice it developed was really eerie and striking, and I was looking forward to more. However, the novel moves into a more conventional narrative, split between various characters.
Mostly, we follow the mayor and a single démineur, Martin, as the full skeleton of someone who may be a WWI soldier is discovered in the Zone. This discovery seems to be the focal point of the novel. However, I felt like the chapters became a series of alternating, loosely connected short-stories that were just about linked by this. I suppose the discovery of the skeleton and the subsequent attempts to identify it are meant to show an attempt to impose order on chaos. Having so many voices seems to be a way to depict life in teeming, expansive confusion, countered with the indifference and silence of death and history. To be honest, though, so many voices in a relatively short book makes the narrative feel undercooked at times. And they spend a lot of their chapters monologuing about the effects of war. So much so that at times I wondered if the author even trusted the reader to get the point. Less of that and more time spent in their actual lives would have been great.
The writing was far stronger during Martin’s chapters. Behind the first second-person chapter, these were my favourite. I think the novel would have been much stronger had it focused on him. I sensed that the author had a real affection for him, and this came through in the prose. His story feels resonant with what’s happening in the book and I would have liked to read more from him.
Overall, I found the themes of environmental destruction leaching into the lives of the people who live there, and the imbrication of history into the present, interesting. I just think the plot and characters needed a bit more weight.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
November 25, 2025
I was very much looking forward to reading this book, given my interest in World War I and the Verdun area in particular.
This is an ambitious novel, successful in some ways and not in others. Since other synopses have been provided by other reviewers, I'll skip that and just give my pros and cons.
Pros:
* The idea that war is never-ending comes through loud and clear, as do the themes of the unending work necessary to remove the dangerous ordnance and the environmental damage caused both by the lengthy battle leftovers and climate change. So does the tenuous connection with Sisyphus.
* Plunkett has provided some vivid images and rendered concrete some things that could remain simply abstract ideas.
* He has created one protagonist (Martin) and one antagonist (Hugo).
* He has created and maintained the atmospheric setting.
* He did his research and the use of French is correct and clear to non-French speakers.
Cons:
* I don't like sentence fragments; that's a personal pet peeve and I was annoyed by the author's use of them.
* About two-thirds of the way through, the multiple narrators . . . multiplied: one section/narrator's purpose is something I still do not comprehend, since it added nothing to the story and came out of nowhere.
* I concur, then, with another reviewer who wrote of the disjointedness of the structure of the novel.
* I have reservations about the final quarter of the book, in which the surreal dominates, but that may just be me.
I have been to all the places mentioned in Zone Rouge; two locations, one on the St.-Mihiel salient, moved me profoundly. While, as you can see, I appreciated certain things about this novel, I did not like it and I was glad when I finished it.
However, I do recommend it, particularly for readers not haunted by Verdun.
This is an ambitious novel, successful in some ways and not in others. Since other synopses have been provided by other reviewers, I'll skip that and just give my pros and cons.
Pros:
* The idea that war is never-ending comes through loud and clear, as do the themes of the unending work necessary to remove the dangerous ordnance and the environmental damage caused both by the lengthy battle leftovers and climate change. So does the tenuous connection with Sisyphus.
* Plunkett has provided some vivid images and rendered concrete some things that could remain simply abstract ideas.
* He has created one protagonist (Martin) and one antagonist (Hugo).
* He has created and maintained the atmospheric setting.
* He did his research and the use of French is correct and clear to non-French speakers.
Cons:
* I don't like sentence fragments; that's a personal pet peeve and I was annoyed by the author's use of them.
* About two-thirds of the way through, the multiple narrators . . . multiplied: one section/narrator's purpose is something I still do not comprehend, since it added nothing to the story and came out of nowhere.
* I concur, then, with another reviewer who wrote of the disjointedness of the structure of the novel.
* I have reservations about the final quarter of the book, in which the surreal dominates, but that may just be me.
I have been to all the places mentioned in Zone Rouge; two locations, one on the St.-Mihiel salient, moved me profoundly. While, as you can see, I appreciated certain things about this novel, I did not like it and I was glad when I finished it.
However, I do recommend it, particularly for readers not haunted by Verdun.
September 2, 2025
On the eve of the official release, I finished Zone Rouge by Michael Jerome Plunkett. What a masterful debut to celebrate. The myth of Sisyphus and the history of The Battle of Verdun anchor this story’s narrative, but Plunkett’s storytelling make each page fresh, raising new questions and ideas for the reader.
When I’m reading, I love a sentence I can hang onto - the kind of sentence that strikes on first read, then lingers through reverberation. Plunkett’s language doesn’t disappoint in this regard: “We spend our lives watching paint dry while the building might explode at any moment.” This novel manages to strike over and over again.
Plunkett doesn’t over complicate the language, but drives the story across well strung ideas and imagery like styrofoam cups that fail to decompose and ants marching: “carpe diem motherfuckers!” I found myself dog-earing pages and underlining beautiful, horrifying sentences like this one: “If a démineur is killed retrieving a shell that was fired with malicious intent a century ago, during a war he wasn’t alive for let alone a combatant, should he be included in the final casualty count for the battle?” While Zone Rouge is a study in the lingering effects of war, what resonated with me was the critical analysis of the human condition. There are several characters in Zone Rouge, but Ferrand Martin’s story is the primary arc. One can’t help but to see themselves in some element of this carefully constructed character. I know I certainly did.
This book made me pause more than once to reflect on my own mortality; “Here stood a man / For a moment / for eternity.”
Despite the Sisyphean theme, there is an uncanny urgency and timeliness to Zone Rouge. Perhaps that is precisely Plunkett’s point.
Zone Rouge is a 2025 must read.
When I’m reading, I love a sentence I can hang onto - the kind of sentence that strikes on first read, then lingers through reverberation. Plunkett’s language doesn’t disappoint in this regard: “We spend our lives watching paint dry while the building might explode at any moment.” This novel manages to strike over and over again.
Plunkett doesn’t over complicate the language, but drives the story across well strung ideas and imagery like styrofoam cups that fail to decompose and ants marching: “carpe diem motherfuckers!” I found myself dog-earing pages and underlining beautiful, horrifying sentences like this one: “If a démineur is killed retrieving a shell that was fired with malicious intent a century ago, during a war he wasn’t alive for let alone a combatant, should he be included in the final casualty count for the battle?” While Zone Rouge is a study in the lingering effects of war, what resonated with me was the critical analysis of the human condition. There are several characters in Zone Rouge, but Ferrand Martin’s story is the primary arc. One can’t help but to see themselves in some element of this carefully constructed character. I know I certainly did.
This book made me pause more than once to reflect on my own mortality; “Here stood a man / For a moment / for eternity.”
Despite the Sisyphean theme, there is an uncanny urgency and timeliness to Zone Rouge. Perhaps that is precisely Plunkett’s point.
Zone Rouge is a 2025 must read.
November 28, 2025
A French bomb disposal team in the Verdun area are responsible for cleaning up the detritus of World War I. While disposing of an artillery shell, the team uncovers the skeleton remains of a soldier. This discovery will impact the city at large in numerous ways.
Michael Jerome Plunkett's debut novel is an engaging read. The former Marine delves into the continued fallout of the Battle of Verdun. The scars of the longest battle of the first world war are still felt in the novel's 250 pages. The author's vivid descriptions of the French landscape were eloquent and oftentimes quite poetic.
I was heavily invested in the life of the main character Ferrand Martin. The bomb disposal tech has lived a memorable life. One that has been touched by a great tragedy. I wish the novel had just been about him. Between his past job experience working as an underwater oil rig welder, his personal tragedy and a late in life illness, there was more then enough to justify building the novel around this. character. I had much less interest in the story of the small-town mayor and his philandering. The novel lost some steam when it left Martin.
A quality debut. It will be interesting to see where Plunkett goes next.
Michael Jerome Plunkett's debut novel is an engaging read. The former Marine delves into the continued fallout of the Battle of Verdun. The scars of the longest battle of the first world war are still felt in the novel's 250 pages. The author's vivid descriptions of the French landscape were eloquent and oftentimes quite poetic.
I was heavily invested in the life of the main character Ferrand Martin. The bomb disposal tech has lived a memorable life. One that has been touched by a great tragedy. I wish the novel had just been about him. Between his past job experience working as an underwater oil rig welder, his personal tragedy and a late in life illness, there was more then enough to justify building the novel around this. character. I had much less interest in the story of the small-town mayor and his philandering. The novel lost some steam when it left Martin.
A quality debut. It will be interesting to see where Plunkett goes next.
September 25, 2025
War lives in the present; that it ends with a surrender is illusory. This is the real subject of Plunkett's novel, which centers on the present day demangeurs whose job consists of locating and discarding the unexploded shells that still litter the earth surrounding Verdun a century after the land was flattened and reconfigured into "sickly waves" by explosives. Cancer, accidental detonations, a poisoned ecosystem are all the echoes of war that "silences but also amplifies" at once.
I read this novel before visiting Verdun, Fort Douamont, and the ghost town of Fleury. After years of teaching WWI and rereading All Quiet on the Western Front with students, this novel played out like a startling aftershock.
I read this novel before visiting Verdun, Fort Douamont, and the ghost town of Fleury. After years of teaching WWI and rereading All Quiet on the Western Front with students, this novel played out like a startling aftershock.
June 25, 2025
My favorite novel so far of 2025. Literature of the highest order!
I'm in awe of Plunkett's sentences and paragraphs, the poetry on every page, his determination to go deeper, his ability to eschew the sentimental at every turn, the novel's structure, and the exquisite beauty and humanity he is able to divine from his material.
This is a towering triumph that deserves a wide readership. Can't recommend it enough.
I'm in awe of Plunkett's sentences and paragraphs, the poetry on every page, his determination to go deeper, his ability to eschew the sentimental at every turn, the novel's structure, and the exquisite beauty and humanity he is able to divine from his material.
This is a towering triumph that deserves a wide readership. Can't recommend it enough.
September 12, 2025
Fantastic novel! I really enjoyed the way this book was written from different perspectives, including the first-person plural narrator. I've already recommended it to a handful of friends. Great for those interested in history!
December 6, 2025
very male-dominated, i don't think any of the female characters had a single thought.
December 22, 2025
Fine debut novel.
September 4, 2025
“We want so badly to believe there is a narrative arc where the war just ends. Proof that you might be able to just turn war off. War. What a tiny word. Three letters. But war is only a beginning with no middle and no end. War silences but it also amplifies. War obliterates but it also creates. It echoes forever in the minds of those who have experienced it, settling into their cells until it is as much a part of them as any other piece. It carries through the bloodline, it carries through the generations. War is much more than what a three-letter word can contain.” p. 204-205
A moving and thought provoking, inspired and original story, Michael Jerome Plunkett leaves us with much to consider.
A moving and thought provoking, inspired and original story, Michael Jerome Plunkett leaves us with much to consider.
December 26, 2025
I have never read a novel so fast.
November 15, 2025
Great historical fiction. One of my favorite ways to learn about history. Fascinating to see how war affects us all way afterwards in ways we didn’t realize were an extension of the events. I had to delve into learning about this tragic time of WWI and of Verdun France. Even had to deep dive into Google maps! Learning about the job of démineurs is a tragic episode of a hundred years plus of asking why did it have to come to this and what are we doing today that our descendants will be paying the price for…. Great first book and hope to read more!
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