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A Hard And Heavy Thing
Top 10 First Novels of 2016-- Booklist
2016 Great Group Reads Selection
Contemplating suicide after nearly a decade at war, Levi sits down to write a note to his best friend Nick, explaining why things have to come to this inevitable end. Years earlier, Levi--a sergeant in the army--made a tragic choice that led his team into ambush, leaving three soldiers dead and two badly injured. During the attack, Levi risked death to save a badly burned and disfigured Nick. His actions won him the Silver Star for gallantry, but nothing could alleviate the guilt he carried after that fateful day. He may have saved Nick in Iraq, but when Levi returns home and spirals out of control, it is Nick's turn to play the savior, urging Levi to write. Levi begins to type as a way of bidding farewell, but what remains when he is finished is not a suicide note. It's a love song, a novel in which the beginning is the story's end, the story's end is the real beginning of Levi's life, and the future is as mutable as words on a page.
2016 Great Group Reads Selection
Contemplating suicide after nearly a decade at war, Levi sits down to write a note to his best friend Nick, explaining why things have to come to this inevitable end. Years earlier, Levi--a sergeant in the army--made a tragic choice that led his team into ambush, leaving three soldiers dead and two badly injured. During the attack, Levi risked death to save a badly burned and disfigured Nick. His actions won him the Silver Star for gallantry, but nothing could alleviate the guilt he carried after that fateful day. He may have saved Nick in Iraq, but when Levi returns home and spirals out of control, it is Nick's turn to play the savior, urging Levi to write. Levi begins to type as a way of bidding farewell, but what remains when he is finished is not a suicide note. It's a love song, a novel in which the beginning is the story's end, the story's end is the real beginning of Levi's life, and the future is as mutable as words on a page.
365 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
9 people are currently reading
686 people want to read
About the author
Matthew J. Hefti
5 books25 followersMatthew J. Hefti is an author, a masthead editor at The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and a practicing attorney who owns his own law firm in Houston, Texas. He's a frequent lecturer and instructor in both creative writing workshops and in continuing legal education seminars.
Hefti's debut novel, A Hard and Heavy Thing (Gallery / Simon & Schuster 2016), was named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by Military Times and one of the Top Ten First Novels of the Year by Booklist. It was chosen by the Women's National Book Association as a Great Group Read. A Hard and Heavy Thing was also awarded the Wisconsin Library Association's Outstanding Achievement recognition.
Before seeing any literary success, Hefti spent twelve years in the U.S. military as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. He is the veteran of four combat tours, two each to Iraq and Afghanistan. While enlisted, he earned a BA in English and an MFA in fiction. After an honorable discharge from the military, he earned his JD from the University of Wisconsin-Law School.
Hefti has contributed fiction and nonfiction to print anthologies such as The Road Ahead: Fiction from the Forever War (Pegasus Books 2017), Retire The Colors (Hudson Whitman 2016), MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2014), and others. His literary criticism and essays have appeared on websites such as Literary Hub, Electric Literature, and many others.
Hefti's debut novel, A Hard and Heavy Thing (Gallery / Simon & Schuster 2016), was named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by Military Times and one of the Top Ten First Novels of the Year by Booklist. It was chosen by the Women's National Book Association as a Great Group Read. A Hard and Heavy Thing was also awarded the Wisconsin Library Association's Outstanding Achievement recognition.
Before seeing any literary success, Hefti spent twelve years in the U.S. military as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. He is the veteran of four combat tours, two each to Iraq and Afghanistan. While enlisted, he earned a BA in English and an MFA in fiction. After an honorable discharge from the military, he earned his JD from the University of Wisconsin-Law School.
Hefti has contributed fiction and nonfiction to print anthologies such as The Road Ahead: Fiction from the Forever War (Pegasus Books 2017), Retire The Colors (Hudson Whitman 2016), MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2014), and others. His literary criticism and essays have appeared on websites such as Literary Hub, Electric Literature, and many others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
July 7, 2015
Finally! A war novel that's less interested in bullets and bombs than it is the complicated inner lives of soldiers. In his brilliantly-observed and exquisitely-paced debut novel, Matthew Hefti has relegated the Iraq War to the background scenery, allowing us to concentrate on the actors standing in front of it. Sure, a harrowing bomb attack on a dusty road is the centerpiece of A Hard and Heavy Thing, but what really impressed me about the book were how the echoes from that bomb blast reached both backward and forward to the pre-war and post-war lives of its main characters Levi, Nick and Eris. Hefti plunges us head first into the whirlpool of these friends' lives and makes us feel everything: the turbulence of teenagers caught in a love triangle, the consequences of joining the Army on a drunken whim and landing in the heat-baked animosity of Iraq, and, most of all, the painful throes of adjusting to post-deployment life. In the new parade of fiction coming out of our 21st-century wars, Matthew Hefti's A Hard and Heavy Thing leads from the front.
October 7, 2015
What a beautiful heartbreaker of a book. This one snuck up on me: I wasn't expecting to grow so invested in Levi and Nick. As the novel opens, they are just two 18-year-old kids hanging around (Levi: "we were young...listless, stoned, and blissfully dumb"). The September 11th attacks occur, and while the two men are still young, stoned, and dumb, Nick, the more thoughtful and morally inclined of the two, proposes to Levi that they join the Army. Levi goes along with this plan, perhaps because he has no better prospects, but also because he cannot envision life without Nick: these two are brothers and then some, with Levi in a sort of constant awe of Nick's goodness and patience, and Nick benefiting from the reality checks of Levi's sarcasm (and the occasional punch in the face).
The entire book is written "from" budding-novelist Levi to Nick, years after a tour in Iraq that has had devastating consequences for the both of them. It's a suicide note, an apology, and a "love story" (in Levi's own words), all in one. Levi frequently equivocates, interrupts himself, tries to jog Nick's memory; he is so desperate to get the words we're reading into Nick's head that it adds a whole layer of tension and longing to the novel that underscores every scene. If "we" read the book, but it never gets to Nick, will it have all been for nothing?
Complicating the "love story" of Levi and Nick is the novel's main female character, Eris, Nick's semi-girlfriend and the object of poor Levi's burning desire. The survivor of various alluded-to traumas at home, Eris is gorgeous, also aimless, confusedly intelligent and manipulative. (I appreciated Hefti's attention to various natures of trauma, in fact, and his decision not to solely masculinize traumatic experience but to acknowledge, even in a war novel, other forms of suffering-- to mark these as important, "hard and heavy," in their own way.) While I found Eris a little maddening at times, she was also realistic, and possibly the saddest character in the book, because she knows as well as the reader does that in a test of Nick's love, Levi would win.
Levi and Nick's path into combat, the scenes in-country, the tragic lack of understanding between Levi and his thrilled family upon his return, and the black hole of alcoholism and post-traumatic stress are all rendered with a care and realism that, for me, set this novel apart from the pack.
(I will be writing about this book more closer to its release in early 2016.)
The entire book is written "from" budding-novelist Levi to Nick, years after a tour in Iraq that has had devastating consequences for the both of them. It's a suicide note, an apology, and a "love story" (in Levi's own words), all in one. Levi frequently equivocates, interrupts himself, tries to jog Nick's memory; he is so desperate to get the words we're reading into Nick's head that it adds a whole layer of tension and longing to the novel that underscores every scene. If "we" read the book, but it never gets to Nick, will it have all been for nothing?
Complicating the "love story" of Levi and Nick is the novel's main female character, Eris, Nick's semi-girlfriend and the object of poor Levi's burning desire. The survivor of various alluded-to traumas at home, Eris is gorgeous, also aimless, confusedly intelligent and manipulative. (I appreciated Hefti's attention to various natures of trauma, in fact, and his decision not to solely masculinize traumatic experience but to acknowledge, even in a war novel, other forms of suffering-- to mark these as important, "hard and heavy," in their own way.) While I found Eris a little maddening at times, she was also realistic, and possibly the saddest character in the book, because she knows as well as the reader does that in a test of Nick's love, Levi would win.
Levi and Nick's path into combat, the scenes in-country, the tragic lack of understanding between Levi and his thrilled family upon his return, and the black hole of alcoholism and post-traumatic stress are all rendered with a care and realism that, for me, set this novel apart from the pack.
(I will be writing about this book more closer to its release in early 2016.)
December 17, 2015
As much as I like to give myself 24 hours after finishing a book (even a horrible book, which this book is the opposite of) to write a review, in this case, I could not wait.
I fell in love with Nick and Levi from the moment they decided to drag Eris's lifeless body to the hospital instead of calling the ambulance. I know, I'm a hopeless romantic and the love-triangle storytelling is right up my alley, so I was easily caught up. But, right when it begins to heat up...BAM! we go to war. Not that I'm complaining, believe me, the war was exceptionally written. I generally don't do war. It's mundane to say the least, but author Matthew J. Hefti knew what he was doing when he manufactured the war scenes. He seemed to write just enough to tell the tale, but not enough to have me skimming paragraphs to avoid technical terms. And, knowing he lived this life himself, I felt as if I was being let in on the secrets of every day war, without traumatizing myself. Thanks Matt.
All of that being said, I felt like the real story began when Levi returned home. Everything written before had to be written to move forward, but every single word written after the return home was necessary to tell the truth in the love story between two brothers. I admit to shedding a tear at one point (which I will not mention here to avoid spoilers, but I'll just say it was during a main characters' realization of some sort) and I will not feign awkwardness at that, but embrace it. Thanks for that too Matt.
All in all five big beautiful stars for "A Hard and Heavy Thing" and congratulations on your first published novel! I'm truly excited for you and your family.
P.S. I only had to look up five words throughout the entire book. This is huge for me, as my vocab is way smaller than the authors. Not saying I didn't have to guess on a few meanings of words that did not seem familiar, but five is pretty decent.
P.P.S. I enjoyed finding the author himself embedded in the story.
P.P.P.S I also enjoyed finding the title in the book. Twice. It's the little things that make me smile. ;)
I fell in love with Nick and Levi from the moment they decided to drag Eris's lifeless body to the hospital instead of calling the ambulance. I know, I'm a hopeless romantic and the love-triangle storytelling is right up my alley, so I was easily caught up. But, right when it begins to heat up...BAM! we go to war. Not that I'm complaining, believe me, the war was exceptionally written. I generally don't do war. It's mundane to say the least, but author Matthew J. Hefti knew what he was doing when he manufactured the war scenes. He seemed to write just enough to tell the tale, but not enough to have me skimming paragraphs to avoid technical terms. And, knowing he lived this life himself, I felt as if I was being let in on the secrets of every day war, without traumatizing myself. Thanks Matt.
All of that being said, I felt like the real story began when Levi returned home. Everything written before had to be written to move forward, but every single word written after the return home was necessary to tell the truth in the love story between two brothers. I admit to shedding a tear at one point (which I will not mention here to avoid spoilers, but I'll just say it was during a main characters' realization of some sort) and I will not feign awkwardness at that, but embrace it. Thanks for that too Matt.
All in all five big beautiful stars for "A Hard and Heavy Thing" and congratulations on your first published novel! I'm truly excited for you and your family.
P.S. I only had to look up five words throughout the entire book. This is huge for me, as my vocab is way smaller than the authors. Not saying I didn't have to guess on a few meanings of words that did not seem familiar, but five is pretty decent.
P.P.S. I enjoyed finding the author himself embedded in the story.
P.P.P.S I also enjoyed finding the title in the book. Twice. It's the little things that make me smile. ;)
August 27, 2015
Absolutely perfect! It is beautiful and heartbreaking.
May 15, 2016
wow. wow. what a phenomenal novel. i usually hate war stories, but i loved this one. it really packed a punch, and the emotion got to me. i couldn't put it down. would highly recommend.
February 6, 2016
This book was both hard and heavy - accurately titled. As I read this, I was aware that it was both for me and not for me. I was an intended audience in that this book described the experiences of a war that I can never understand, and yet it was not written for me for the same reason. I've been uncomfortable with novelizations of war, the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan especially for obvious reasons, but when I saw this book I thought I'd give it a go. It's beautifully written. The plot is well paced, the switching between persons is easy to follow, and the development of the characters is well done, almost painfully so. A beautiful novel and one I can comfortably recommend.
June 4, 2016
rounding up to 4 stars, I cried but it wasn't too sappy
July 25, 2017
This was a very dark book, probably true to life, but depressing.
June 4, 2017
Excellent book, a little dark, a little intense, definitely for the adult reader. In the end, it is essentially about forgiveness.
September 2, 2018
4.5 stars. Love the literary style as well as the subject matter. Beautiful descriptions of some very ugly things.
January 14, 2018
Sometimes, as a kid, I asked my dad for advice. Should I pick path A or B?
He usually said this cryptic line: “Life is full of choices.”
I used to think, What the hell does that mean? Thanks a lot, old man.
Now I realize it was a gift. He forced me to focus on the question, not the answer. A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti is like that. His book raises tough questions from the point of view of the three main characters: Levi, Nick, and Eris. Once you understand how the narration jumps back and forth in time, all you care about is the three characters. You feel the difficulty these young people have reintegrating into “normal life” after their turn at the Forever Wars.
Two parts of the book struck me. The book hinges on a combat scenario that involves Levi and Nick. Levi reaches a certain mental state after that fight:
He slept little and ate less, but he soldiered on. In the meantime, he allowed himself no respite from the work of keeping his squad alive. No longer did he think of himself. No longer did he allow his ego or romanticism or grand ideas to keep him from performing in the way he knew he should. He stopped thinking about the merits of the war. If war was bad, it didn’t change his mission to keep his brothers alive. If war was good, it was only because it taught you how to survive; it taught you how to endure; it taught you how to wait; it taught you how to abide.
Later in the book, Nick, drunk and frustrated with his friend yells this at Levi:
You can’t change anything, Levi. I can’t change anything. The past is done. It’s over.
I read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes last year. Like its namesake mountain, it’s a towering novel that takes place in Vietnam. The two passages with Levi and Nick are about how the character deals with the horror of their circumstances and the merciless way that the arrow of time only goes in one direction. Hefti’s characters reminded me of one paragraph that Marlantes wrote in Matterhorn when the protagonist Mellas deals with the same topics:
He hid behind a blasted stump and he tried to think about meaning. He knew that there could be no meaning to someone who was dead. Meaning came out of living. Meaning could come only from his choices and actions. Meaning was made, not discovered. He saw that he alone could make Hawke’s death meaningful by choosing what Hawk had chosen, the company. The things he’d wanted before—power, prestige—now seemed empty, and their pursuit endless. What he did and thought in the present would give him the answer, so he would not look for answers in the past or future. Painful events would always be painful. The dead are dead forever.
Characters in both novels arrive at the solution to focus on the choices they make in the present. Characters in both novels acknowledge the fact that the past is cemented and permanent. Cannot be undone. Hefti does a good job addressing fate and luck in the book, too, which is part of that unforgiving arrow of time. You can’t go back and change fate.
Marlantes wrote a single punch to my gut. Hefti’s book was a series of jabs and hooks, but cumulatively powerful at the end of the fight. A Hard and Heavy Thing includes a Readers’ Group Guide at the back of the book. It’s a series of questions. There are no answers in the guide. You have to figure it out for yourself.
He usually said this cryptic line: “Life is full of choices.”
I used to think, What the hell does that mean? Thanks a lot, old man.
Now I realize it was a gift. He forced me to focus on the question, not the answer. A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti is like that. His book raises tough questions from the point of view of the three main characters: Levi, Nick, and Eris. Once you understand how the narration jumps back and forth in time, all you care about is the three characters. You feel the difficulty these young people have reintegrating into “normal life” after their turn at the Forever Wars.
Two parts of the book struck me. The book hinges on a combat scenario that involves Levi and Nick. Levi reaches a certain mental state after that fight:
He slept little and ate less, but he soldiered on. In the meantime, he allowed himself no respite from the work of keeping his squad alive. No longer did he think of himself. No longer did he allow his ego or romanticism or grand ideas to keep him from performing in the way he knew he should. He stopped thinking about the merits of the war. If war was bad, it didn’t change his mission to keep his brothers alive. If war was good, it was only because it taught you how to survive; it taught you how to endure; it taught you how to wait; it taught you how to abide.
Later in the book, Nick, drunk and frustrated with his friend yells this at Levi:
You can’t change anything, Levi. I can’t change anything. The past is done. It’s over.
I read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes last year. Like its namesake mountain, it’s a towering novel that takes place in Vietnam. The two passages with Levi and Nick are about how the character deals with the horror of their circumstances and the merciless way that the arrow of time only goes in one direction. Hefti’s characters reminded me of one paragraph that Marlantes wrote in Matterhorn when the protagonist Mellas deals with the same topics:
He hid behind a blasted stump and he tried to think about meaning. He knew that there could be no meaning to someone who was dead. Meaning came out of living. Meaning could come only from his choices and actions. Meaning was made, not discovered. He saw that he alone could make Hawke’s death meaningful by choosing what Hawk had chosen, the company. The things he’d wanted before—power, prestige—now seemed empty, and their pursuit endless. What he did and thought in the present would give him the answer, so he would not look for answers in the past or future. Painful events would always be painful. The dead are dead forever.
Characters in both novels arrive at the solution to focus on the choices they make in the present. Characters in both novels acknowledge the fact that the past is cemented and permanent. Cannot be undone. Hefti does a good job addressing fate and luck in the book, too, which is part of that unforgiving arrow of time. You can’t go back and change fate.
Marlantes wrote a single punch to my gut. Hefti’s book was a series of jabs and hooks, but cumulatively powerful at the end of the fight. A Hard and Heavy Thing includes a Readers’ Group Guide at the back of the book. It’s a series of questions. There are no answers in the guide. You have to figure it out for yourself.
January 26, 2020
I was going to give this book 3 stars with a 3.5 qualification but in the end, I decided that the good parts outweighed the not-so-good ones. While I appreciate the effort, the creative device employed in this book, to interject a third-person narrative with first-person side-notes, was distracting to me. This would have been a solid 4-star book if that was done better.
Overall, though, having zero experience with the military, much less war, I appreciated the depth of perspective and the skill with which Hefti used the characters and actions to quietly describe the complexities of going to and returning from war. He trusts his readers to get it and did not go into any preaching or rants or exposition. To me, a good book does not tell; it shows. So 4 stars it is.
Overall, though, having zero experience with the military, much less war, I appreciated the depth of perspective and the skill with which Hefti used the characters and actions to quietly describe the complexities of going to and returning from war. He trusts his readers to get it and did not go into any preaching or rants or exposition. To me, a good book does not tell; it shows. So 4 stars it is.
March 21, 2016
I received "A Hard and Heavy Thing" as a First-Reads giveaway by goodreads in return for an honest review.
"We Joined in a Fit of Youth" is an apt introductory title for this mesmerizing debut. Levi and Nick are two best friends who join the U.S. Army in the wake of 9/11 and their own personal tragedies. Influenced by the media and their own naive perceptions of patriotism, the boys soon discover that the Afghan/Iraq war and its' aftermath, is indeed a hard and heavy thing to endure and escape from.
The novel is broken up into three acts: before, during, and after the war, and this device really allows the author to develop a strong psychological basis for each of his three main characters; Levi, Nick, and Eris, the woman with whom both boys are in love. The narrative switches rather quickly between the third-person account of Levi and Nick's story and Levi's own first person musings on his experience. While this device is initially jarring to the reader, by the end, it brings a creative and symbolic dynamic to the narrative.
I loved the dialogue in this novel, it was sparse and quick and really made the characters seem like real people surviving through their domestic lives. The deep, philosophical discussions about the nature of pre and post 9/11 politics and technology was captivating and made the novel impossible to put down.
I personally have never served in the military but have friends and family who have, and I can say that this book seems to highlight the trials of their experiences both abroad and in America. This work, written by a veteran, should be read by all who want to reflect and learn from the power, mistakes, and admiration of war. This novel has a ton of heart and I look forward to reading whatever Mr. Hefti publishes next.
"We Joined in a Fit of Youth" is an apt introductory title for this mesmerizing debut. Levi and Nick are two best friends who join the U.S. Army in the wake of 9/11 and their own personal tragedies. Influenced by the media and their own naive perceptions of patriotism, the boys soon discover that the Afghan/Iraq war and its' aftermath, is indeed a hard and heavy thing to endure and escape from.
The novel is broken up into three acts: before, during, and after the war, and this device really allows the author to develop a strong psychological basis for each of his three main characters; Levi, Nick, and Eris, the woman with whom both boys are in love. The narrative switches rather quickly between the third-person account of Levi and Nick's story and Levi's own first person musings on his experience. While this device is initially jarring to the reader, by the end, it brings a creative and symbolic dynamic to the narrative.
I loved the dialogue in this novel, it was sparse and quick and really made the characters seem like real people surviving through their domestic lives. The deep, philosophical discussions about the nature of pre and post 9/11 politics and technology was captivating and made the novel impossible to put down.
I personally have never served in the military but have friends and family who have, and I can say that this book seems to highlight the trials of their experiences both abroad and in America. This work, written by a veteran, should be read by all who want to reflect and learn from the power, mistakes, and admiration of war. This novel has a ton of heart and I look forward to reading whatever Mr. Hefti publishes next.
June 25, 2017
I read this book for my book club. It is not a book I would typically pick out. I did not like the way the author kept switching perspective from 1st to 3rd person. It took me about half the book to get used to it. The story itself was interesting enough to keep my attention to some degree. I must say though, that I did not particularly like the characters. However, I felt that Hefti (author) did a decent job of portraying them, especially the main character Levi. Levi is a self centered, drunk who comes up with the idea to enlist in the armed services after 9/11 during a night of drinking with his friend Nick. Neither really have any idea what they are signing up for. While in Iraq, Levi and Nick are on a mission and hit and IED. While the initial IED explosion does little damage, the attack that ultimately follows leaves Nick injured and Levi second guessing his decisions. Despite his obvious turmoil over the events of the day, Levi ends up getting the Silver Star for bravery. He is quite conflicted over this and his psyche wreaks havoc on him, leading to an episode which gets him discharged from service. His downward spiral continues in civilian life. He ends up living with his friends Nick and Eris until he can get his life on track. This takes longer than anticipated and he is ultimately asked to leave. Levi and Nick end up having a knockdown, blowout fight one night which, combined with a run-in with Eris, causes Levi to re-evaluate his life.
Had I not read the readers group guide, I would have had a different interpretation of the ending. Quite honestly, the ending I had thought was true would have made more sense and tied in better with the Adumbration.
Had I not read the readers group guide, I would have had a different interpretation of the ending. Quite honestly, the ending I had thought was true would have made more sense and tied in better with the Adumbration.
June 29, 2017
I read this book for my book club after it was recommended by a member who is an acquaintance of the author. This is not a book I would normally pick up on my own, but it is a book worth reading. I admit, I wasn't drawn to it like I am other books. There weren't moments that I couldn't put it down, and there were a few times when I wasn't really looking forward to picking it up, especially the combat sections where I felt so incredibly uninformed and ignorant. However, the second half of the book - the AFTER - were so heartbreaking and eye-opening. It made me look at active service members and veterans in a whole new light, especially those who are my family and friends. I enjoyed that this book took place in small town Wisconsin and the section about 9/11 was completely relatable able to me, as I was in an almost identical situation as the characters in the book. At times I felt like the writing was a little pretentious and the writer (vs. perhaps the actual author - which will make no sense unless you've read it) was trying to use as many big vocabulary words as possible, but the story as a whole was a good one. Nice job, Mr. Hefty. Yay for WI authors. ;)
May 22, 2016
This is a very original story. It is well-written and powerful. The scenes in country seemed real and gritty to me (I did not serve). Mr. Hefti let the story unfold and kept me wanting to read right up until the end. The main character is both a hero and an anti-hero and i believe this to be hard to pull off.
I also enjoyed the setting of the Lacrosse area and his Wisconsin bars. His characters seem like real people with real problems that do not get solved easily.
I also enjoyed the setting of the Lacrosse area and his Wisconsin bars. His characters seem like real people with real problems that do not get solved easily.
June 17, 2017
It's a bittersweet story, chronicling the events that led two friends to join the army after 9/11. It doesn't glorify war. It illustrates the ugliness, regret, boredom, and scars of war. It's a suicide note that becomes a love letter. A friend desperately wants redemption and purpose, and this is his journey.
December 2, 2016
"A suicide note turned love song."
Read it. Read it now.
Read it. Read it now.
Read
February 7, 2017I tried really hard to read this, but something about Hefti's narration-style kept throwing me. I'll give it another shot in the future, but for now, I'm marking as did not finish.
June 18, 2017
This is the 31st book I've read this year and it is in the top 3 of my favorites. Excellent book. Really enjoyed it.
October 14, 2018
4.5/5 guilt-ridden stars
While I was reading this book I was reminded of another war novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Levi is like Gene. He sees Nick (Phineas) as virtuous and is envious of what he is and covetous of what he has (Eris). They have an adversarial friendship, but it's not all fun and games. It's obvious from the thoughts and actions of Levi that he does want, at least on a subconscious level, to hurt Nick. Sticking the stone down the back of Nick's uniform is the equivalent of Gene shaking the tree branch and making Phineas fall.
As the book goes on, the reader understands this novel is a letter, a confession in search of absolution, and a suicide note all in one. It is told in third person, with Levi making personal asides to Nick in brackets. (At the conclusion of the book, I'm not entirely sure how the third person perspectives of Eris and Nick are knowable to Levi for his "letter." Perhaps this is what he believed they were thinking and saying.) I can objectively say that Levi is a deeply flawed character who does a lot of despicable things. I'm not a complete hypocrite; however, and recognize that we are all just as bad. If our righteous acts are like filthy rags, I can't imagine how fetid are the rags of our selfish and mean-spirited acts. Our thoughts are even worse. I can't judge Levi too harshly. I'd hate to put all my dark musings on paper.
If Levi is the sinner in the story, then Nick is the Christ Figure. He is portrayed as good of heart, forgiving, and selfless. The author even uses the Isaiah 53:2 to describe him. There is nothing to attract us to him. His forgiveness also extends to his wife. Their marriage is far from ideal and they are both to blame. He works too much and closes himself off from her. She is a recovering alcoholic and unfaithful. Nick is not perfect, but of all the characters in the book he is the most noble and most likable.
My favorite part is at the end of the book. Levi has been carrying around the stone he placed in Nick's uniform. Over the years the pebble has become a boulder of guilt for Levi. I love that Nick takes the stone and tosses it in the river. Just like that, Levi is forgiven. Phineas forgave Gene too, although it was the death of Phineas that brought his peace.
While I was reading this book I was reminded of another war novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Levi is like Gene. He sees Nick (Phineas) as virtuous and is envious of what he is and covetous of what he has (Eris). They have an adversarial friendship, but it's not all fun and games. It's obvious from the thoughts and actions of Levi that he does want, at least on a subconscious level, to hurt Nick. Sticking the stone down the back of Nick's uniform is the equivalent of Gene shaking the tree branch and making Phineas fall.
As the book goes on, the reader understands this novel is a letter, a confession in search of absolution, and a suicide note all in one. It is told in third person, with Levi making personal asides to Nick in brackets. (At the conclusion of the book, I'm not entirely sure how the third person perspectives of Eris and Nick are knowable to Levi for his "letter." Perhaps this is what he believed they were thinking and saying.) I can objectively say that Levi is a deeply flawed character who does a lot of despicable things. I'm not a complete hypocrite; however, and recognize that we are all just as bad. If our righteous acts are like filthy rags, I can't imagine how fetid are the rags of our selfish and mean-spirited acts. Our thoughts are even worse. I can't judge Levi too harshly. I'd hate to put all my dark musings on paper.
If Levi is the sinner in the story, then Nick is the Christ Figure. He is portrayed as good of heart, forgiving, and selfless. The author even uses the Isaiah 53:2 to describe him. There is nothing to attract us to him. His forgiveness also extends to his wife. Their marriage is far from ideal and they are both to blame. He works too much and closes himself off from her. She is a recovering alcoholic and unfaithful. Nick is not perfect, but of all the characters in the book he is the most noble and most likable.
My favorite part is at the end of the book. Levi has been carrying around the stone he placed in Nick's uniform. Over the years the pebble has become a boulder of guilt for Levi. I love that Nick takes the stone and tosses it in the river. Just like that, Levi is forgiven. Phineas forgave Gene too, although it was the death of Phineas that brought his peace.
August 25, 2023
Appreciate the effort with this book by a no-kidding, been there warfighter. I see a lot of slaughterhouse five influence in this book. I like the characters in this book a lot. However, I think the authors own writing ability hindered the story he was trying to tell here. The writing reads very much like the first book that it is. Im no great writer myself- that’s why I write stuff on goodreads instead of putting forth the effort and writing a book. Still: I found the large skipped swaths of time, inner monologue interjections and the underdevelopment of the characters backstories to be distracting. It’s clear that the idea was there but more time spent getting to know why these characters are the way that they are would have been helpful. What were Levi and Nick like in school? How did people relate to them? Why did they feel so hopeless at the beginning and how did their upbringings play into that? Levi for instance- his siblings were doing great. Why is he so different and chose such a different path? Levi and Nick love each other but also kind of hate each other. Why is that? Do they put too much pressure on themselves and each other? Are they both looking for something from the other that they can’t provide? And poor Eris. The best character in the book. Wanted to see more from her. Some meat left on the bone here.
That being said, I give this three stars instead of two because I gotta support my fellow vets, and I think the story being told here is fresh, sincere, and earnest.
That being said, I give this three stars instead of two because I gotta support my fellow vets, and I think the story being told here is fresh, sincere, and earnest.
August 5, 2021
They say that military geeks love Tom Clancy because he gets the tech details right. I don't have the life experience to know if that's true for Hefti, but it sure seems like anyone who served in Afghanistan / Iraq would recognize the military life and the setting depicted in
A Hard and Heavy Thing
. From what I know of veterans, his depiction of PTSD and life after the military for those who have trouble readapting.
Hefti's use of vocabulary is expansive. This is not your novel by Hemingway.
I listened to the author read the audio version. I don't know if the print version uses italics when the story is told in the first person, but there was no change in voice or other indicator when the book shifted from first person to third and back again. I found that very confusing, even if it was innovative.
Full disclosure: I am a college classmate of the author's father and we knew each other well when we were the age of the friends in this book. However, I have not known the author, nor was I asked to read the book or review it.
Hefti's use of vocabulary is expansive. This is not your novel by Hemingway.
I listened to the author read the audio version. I don't know if the print version uses italics when the story is told in the first person, but there was no change in voice or other indicator when the book shifted from first person to third and back again. I found that very confusing, even if it was innovative.
Full disclosure: I am a college classmate of the author's father and we knew each other well when we were the age of the friends in this book. However, I have not known the author, nor was I asked to read the book or review it.
September 11, 2021
“A Hard and Heavy Thing,” by Matthew I Hefti. An excellent novel written from a male friendship perspective and the two friends enduring war after 9/11. Nick and Levi have been best friends their entire lives. Eris is the girl that has entered their lives in recent years who wants to be with Nick, but Levi is secretly in love with her. Nick and Levi enlisted for idealistic reasons, only to find that going to war was not what their young minds believed it to be. Their experiences in Iraq as they are on patrols bring to light the mental toll that war takes on a person - not to mention the physical harm. Nick returns home first after being hurt (ends up married to Eris), and years later when Levi comes home as a supposed hero, he struggles to work through things that happened, his feelings of guilt, PTSD, and mending their friendship. The book starts out as Levi’s goodbye letter of explanation to nick, but ends up as more of a love letter of friendship. Great book.
February 24, 2019
A well written account of war veterans dealing with their experience, Hefti draws from personal experience. The narrative is innovative and pulls together at the end nicely. It wasn't an easy read but not hard either. Reminded me of a modern classic - '1984' or 'Strange New World' in that regard (certainly not content).
As a vet myself, I am not sure if I love or hate this work. I do not think, nor do I believe it is helpful, to portray veterans as victims. Hefti certainly doesn't come out an do this overtly, but I finished the book conflicted. I was cross between a 3 or 4 star subjective assessment; went with 4 over my internal conflict with the story. It made me feel.
For those trying to understand their (or someone else's) wartime experience, there is a lot of goodness here.
As a vet myself, I am not sure if I love or hate this work. I do not think, nor do I believe it is helpful, to portray veterans as victims. Hefti certainly doesn't come out an do this overtly, but I finished the book conflicted. I was cross between a 3 or 4 star subjective assessment; went with 4 over my internal conflict with the story. It made me feel.
For those trying to understand their (or someone else's) wartime experience, there is a lot of goodness here.
October 28, 2019
I am sure that this book had a good moral message, however, I feel like I am reading the same sentence over and over again. He did this. He did that. He thought this, then he thought that. I can't stand it. In addition to the poor writing, there is almost no distinction between each of the characters. At any given moment the author could be talking about either Levi or Nick and I would be none the wiser. They act and talk like the exact same person. Even the authors own interjections in the text are indistinguishable from the rest of the novel. Based on other reviews I've read the content must be at least something but I just can't get over the narration. Maybe one day in the future I will attempt to read it again.
April 7, 2020
Book sinks it teeth in and doesn’t let go until the end. Even after completing it’s still there with the lingering uncomfortableness it created.
Really appreciated the internal battles each character had throughout the book. How they handled them and treated others wasn’t wrong, nor were they right.
Book took me back also, to the early days. Before the war became.. normal. Before we all became so desceentatized to the trauma it produces.
The ending is the part that left me frustrated. However, that might have been the point with its red, white and blue finish.
Recommend, those struggling with demons, want to understand others or if you’ve just ignored them. Pick it up and get lost in the words.
A hard and heavy thing. Perfect title!!
Really appreciated the internal battles each character had throughout the book. How they handled them and treated others wasn’t wrong, nor were they right.
Book took me back also, to the early days. Before the war became.. normal. Before we all became so desceentatized to the trauma it produces.
The ending is the part that left me frustrated. However, that might have been the point with its red, white and blue finish.
Recommend, those struggling with demons, want to understand others or if you’ve just ignored them. Pick it up and get lost in the words.
A hard and heavy thing. Perfect title!!
September 25, 2021
A very hard and heavy subject and a book we all need to read. I actually think it should be required reading for high school juniors or seniors. I loved the part when Levi was imagining his soldier self. Service is not as glamorous as it can sound. I loved the way the book told us the story of before, during, and after. And I loved the way the author wove himself into the story. He definitely knows what he wrote. Great book about war.
February 24, 2019
When you start reading this book, you have a thought on how it it going to end. Then you read the middle of it and the descriptive detail of the war is so real, it has you waiting for that moment to happen, but it doesn't, it happens differently but in a way that doesn't diminish the story but enhances it, making it seem even more real to the world. Makes you understand the world a lot of more.
December 14, 2018
Outstanding look at the lives of two young men who go from lost kids to soldiers and back again.
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