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News From the Red Desert: A novel
From the award-winning author of The Water in Between and Consumption, the definitive novel of the Afghanistan war.
News From the Red Desert begins in late 2001, when everyone believes the war is already won and the Taliban defeated, then leaps late in the severely escalated conflict--into the mess, and death, and confusion. At its heart are the men and women who have come to Afghanistan to seek purpose, and adventure, and danger, by engaging in the most bewitching and treacherous of human pursuits: making war.
It's the story of Deirdre O'Malley, an American journalist who had been covering municipal politics when the airplanes went into the towers. Now a war correspondent, she has come to love the soldiers she covers and to grieve so hard over their wounds and their deaths she considers herself a member of the mission too. Embedded with Canadian infantry, she can't ignore the situation on the ground. Her loyalty toward her ex-lover, the American general who has taken command of the theatre, wavers as the war wavers, and the use of torture and the slaughter of civilians is brought to light. Fuelling the tension is a melancholy American supply sergeant who accidentally releases a trove of war porn online that sparks a furious hunt for the person who leaked it. Fearing arrest at any moment, he has stayed on too long in Kandahar for reasons he doesn't understand himself. Caught up in these currents are the Pakistanis who operate the Green Beans café on the Kandahar Airfield, led by optimist Rami Issay, who wants to lighten his customers' hearts (and make a success of his business) by running film and chess clubs in the only zone of recreation on the base. But the war intrudes even into the lives of the well-intentioned. In a powerful climax that tests everyone's loyalty and faith, the essential chaos of violence asserts itself. Love and desire endure, but no-one escapes unscathed.
News From the Red Desert begins in late 2001, when everyone believes the war is already won and the Taliban defeated, then leaps late in the severely escalated conflict--into the mess, and death, and confusion. At its heart are the men and women who have come to Afghanistan to seek purpose, and adventure, and danger, by engaging in the most bewitching and treacherous of human pursuits: making war.
It's the story of Deirdre O'Malley, an American journalist who had been covering municipal politics when the airplanes went into the towers. Now a war correspondent, she has come to love the soldiers she covers and to grieve so hard over their wounds and their deaths she considers herself a member of the mission too. Embedded with Canadian infantry, she can't ignore the situation on the ground. Her loyalty toward her ex-lover, the American general who has taken command of the theatre, wavers as the war wavers, and the use of torture and the slaughter of civilians is brought to light. Fuelling the tension is a melancholy American supply sergeant who accidentally releases a trove of war porn online that sparks a furious hunt for the person who leaked it. Fearing arrest at any moment, he has stayed on too long in Kandahar for reasons he doesn't understand himself. Caught up in these currents are the Pakistanis who operate the Green Beans café on the Kandahar Airfield, led by optimist Rami Issay, who wants to lighten his customers' hearts (and make a success of his business) by running film and chess clubs in the only zone of recreation on the base. But the war intrudes even into the lives of the well-intentioned. In a powerful climax that tests everyone's loyalty and faith, the essential chaos of violence asserts itself. Love and desire endure, but no-one escapes unscathed.
320 pages, Paperback
Published December 26, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 25, 2017
This is powerful,serious fiction regarding the war in Afghanistan. The author, Kevin Patterson,knows his subject, having been a Canadian Force veteran, a medical doctor who served as a volunteer in the Canadian surgical hospital in Kandahar in 2007 which is the time when much of the story takes place.
The story begins in 2001 when people believe the Taliban have been defeated and abruptly skips to 2007 amidst chaos, confusion and death. We meet an assortment of people at the Kandahar base. At first the duties, backgrounds, beliefs and storylines of the main characters were fragmented and lacking cohesiveness.
We meet some members of the American Special Forces and the Canadian military. We have two rival generals with different philosophies and takes on the war. There is Deirdre O'Malley, a journalist embedded in the Canadian infantry. On 911 she was covering city politics and in 2007 has just returned to Afghanistan from Iraq. A melancholy supplies sergeant who cannot understand why he has lingered so long in Kandahar. He accidentally uploads war porn (videos of atrocities by allied soldiers) and the command is searching to find and punish whomever they feel responsible for the leak. There is an interpreter who calls himself John Wayne.
Deirdre accompanies the Canadian army and is present at a firefight, observing injury and death on both sides of the battle. Later she witnesses an illegal shooting of villagers who may or may not be guilty of conspiring with the Taliban.
When not in the field of battle soldiers play video war games in barracks to relieve the monotony at base. There is a coffee shop called the Green Bean where the manager and staff are all Moslems, mainly from Pakistan. The manager is an optimistic character and no one likes him much. Rami Issay has started a chess club and a later a cinema club at his popular espresso shop to counteract the tedium. A Hollywood production crew arrive with plans to shoot a reality show and Issay hopes that this will lead to him becoming a star in America. Frequenting the cafe is a Thai masseuse hoping to give her son a better life and education when she returns home with her earnings. She takes a motherly interest in the youngest cafe worker. This meets with disapproval from a staff member.
Along with the boredom on base, there are coverups and propaganda painting a positive picture of good work, building projects and beliefs in an upcoming decisive victory. As the storylines converge, something horrific happens and all hell breaks loose!There are some unbearable scenes of torture as a means of interrogation. 4.5 stars
The story begins in 2001 when people believe the Taliban have been defeated and abruptly skips to 2007 amidst chaos, confusion and death. We meet an assortment of people at the Kandahar base. At first the duties, backgrounds, beliefs and storylines of the main characters were fragmented and lacking cohesiveness.
We meet some members of the American Special Forces and the Canadian military. We have two rival generals with different philosophies and takes on the war. There is Deirdre O'Malley, a journalist embedded in the Canadian infantry. On 911 she was covering city politics and in 2007 has just returned to Afghanistan from Iraq. A melancholy supplies sergeant who cannot understand why he has lingered so long in Kandahar. He accidentally uploads war porn (videos of atrocities by allied soldiers) and the command is searching to find and punish whomever they feel responsible for the leak. There is an interpreter who calls himself John Wayne.
Deirdre accompanies the Canadian army and is present at a firefight, observing injury and death on both sides of the battle. Later she witnesses an illegal shooting of villagers who may or may not be guilty of conspiring with the Taliban.
When not in the field of battle soldiers play video war games in barracks to relieve the monotony at base. There is a coffee shop called the Green Bean where the manager and staff are all Moslems, mainly from Pakistan. The manager is an optimistic character and no one likes him much. Rami Issay has started a chess club and a later a cinema club at his popular espresso shop to counteract the tedium. A Hollywood production crew arrive with plans to shoot a reality show and Issay hopes that this will lead to him becoming a star in America. Frequenting the cafe is a Thai masseuse hoping to give her son a better life and education when she returns home with her earnings. She takes a motherly interest in the youngest cafe worker. This meets with disapproval from a staff member.
Along with the boredom on base, there are coverups and propaganda painting a positive picture of good work, building projects and beliefs in an upcoming decisive victory. As the storylines converge, something horrific happens and all hell breaks loose!There are some unbearable scenes of torture as a means of interrogation. 4.5 stars
February 16, 2017
First of all, ignore the blurb/synopsis. It does Kevin Patterson's work a disservice in making it seem like the book is all about the romance between a female journalist and a general during the war in Afghanistan. It's not. PLEASE don't let that very misleading synopsis influence your decision to read or not read this novel, because it will do you no favours either way. Which isn't to say that this book is bad, because that is absolutely not true, only that the synopsis is misleading.
In fact, this book is really, really good. It depicts the complexities of the war in Afghanistan and examines how so many different contributing factors resulted in the mess of that war, despite the good intentions most people had. The writing is strong, the characters are vivid and wholly realized, the story is compelling, and it reminds me, in a lot of ways, of A Prayer for Owen Meany in the way that book addressed Vietnam and the tangle of factors that went into the mess of the war there.
Patterson's work deserves to be read, because I think it should have been up for the Giller Prize this year, though unfortunately it wasn't. It is miles and away better than The Sentimentalists, which won the Giller a few years ago and which concerned the war in Vietnam and its consequences.
Just do yourself a favour and give the book a chance past the synopsis you see here and on the back cover, because it's so much better than that bit of writing makes it seem. This is a powerful story with strong, smart writing that will give you a better understanding of what went on in Afghanistan and why.
In fact, this book is really, really good. It depicts the complexities of the war in Afghanistan and examines how so many different contributing factors resulted in the mess of that war, despite the good intentions most people had. The writing is strong, the characters are vivid and wholly realized, the story is compelling, and it reminds me, in a lot of ways, of A Prayer for Owen Meany in the way that book addressed Vietnam and the tangle of factors that went into the mess of the war there.
Patterson's work deserves to be read, because I think it should have been up for the Giller Prize this year, though unfortunately it wasn't. It is miles and away better than The Sentimentalists, which won the Giller a few years ago and which concerned the war in Vietnam and its consequences.
Just do yourself a favour and give the book a chance past the synopsis you see here and on the back cover, because it's so much better than that bit of writing makes it seem. This is a powerful story with strong, smart writing that will give you a better understanding of what went on in Afghanistan and why.
September 15, 2016
Excellent feel for his subject matter. The ending dropped off a bit, but overall this is probably going to be one of the defining novels of the Afghan war, which has its own flavour. Patterson mentions O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" Vietnam novel, which similarly captures the essence of aspects of that war. It was interesting to read both of these sequentially. Patterson is Canadian (and wrote most of the novel in a Nanaimo coffee shop), but most of the characters are US and Afghan/Pakistani, with other coalition countries added to the mix. Some of the interrogation scenes and the movie night shoot-up can get a bit harrowing. As a medical guy, who served with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, his descriptions of injuries have a lot of veracity and vividness. I will be looking into some of his other works.
September 13, 2017
3.5 A story of the Afghanistan conflict. Multiple characters with a voice. Involves journalists, troops, supply staff, local support staff manning a coffee shop. The ending is satisfying but through a lot of the book I struggled. I found the plot didn't move along fast enough. It was dragged down by to much unneeded stories. Having so many voices would tend to do this. In the end I liked the messages of this book.
July 23, 2016
Interesting book if not a bit of a predictable ending. It carried the ring of authenticity with the patrol descriptions and Kandahar locale. The interrogation techniques described certainly called for a tough stomach. I thought the characters of the two generals were ably conveyed with their different military view points and subtly adversarial roles. Not for all readers but I liked it.
August 15, 2018
Not my usual kind of book but I’m glad I read it. The author’s experience in Afghanistan makes the novel feel very authentic, both in descriptions of the country and military operations and mindset. All the characters are very believable, though the only really sympathetic ones are the Pakistanis who operate the base’s coffee shop, and who are just trying to find a way to survive.
February 16, 2018
News From the Red Desert depicts the confusions, misunderstandings, and tangled egos, which play out in the arena of a modern war and is an education on why they often fail: the breakdown of right and wrong, the inability for occupiers to penetrate the society around them, failures in communication...
Patteson’s prose is clean, making space for the carefully placed beautiful phrase to resonate and peppered with fascinating though sometimes graphic medical facts, like “the trouble with cold blood is that it doesn’t clot,” as a chilled, wounded man succumbs to shock. (Patterson is a doctor who has worked in military hospitals in Afghanistan). His dialogue is also lean, unadorned as one would imagine in such a setting, where much is not said.
The truths of the debacle of modern proxy wars are hard to face but the reader feels that they are delivered in good hands and for the right reasons, with honesty and the deep, though not overt fury of a civilized man, trained to save lives.
This book is richly populated with interesting and believable characters, a carefully crafted yarn, complete with knots and twists. But, like Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the first honest book about the American soldier’s experience of Vietnam, it is also a clear-eyed look at the Canadian experience in Afghanistan.
It is a case study for the futility of most modern foreign wars and in that way, essential reading for citizens before they allow their politicians to send their children into the next one.
Patteson’s prose is clean, making space for the carefully placed beautiful phrase to resonate and peppered with fascinating though sometimes graphic medical facts, like “the trouble with cold blood is that it doesn’t clot,” as a chilled, wounded man succumbs to shock. (Patterson is a doctor who has worked in military hospitals in Afghanistan). His dialogue is also lean, unadorned as one would imagine in such a setting, where much is not said.
The truths of the debacle of modern proxy wars are hard to face but the reader feels that they are delivered in good hands and for the right reasons, with honesty and the deep, though not overt fury of a civilized man, trained to save lives.
This book is richly populated with interesting and believable characters, a carefully crafted yarn, complete with knots and twists. But, like Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the first honest book about the American soldier’s experience of Vietnam, it is also a clear-eyed look at the Canadian experience in Afghanistan.
It is a case study for the futility of most modern foreign wars and in that way, essential reading for citizens before they allow their politicians to send their children into the next one.
November 4, 2017
This was tough to read in parts, dealing as it does with war and the terrible things it makes us do to to each other. I found it slow to get into but halfway through it became increasingly compelling. Patterson uses an omniscient voice so we have no mistake about who's thinking what and that makes the injustice of what happens all the more disheartening. The story is set in Afghanistan and written with such authenticity I felt I learned something about what has gone on since the "Allies" invaded.
September 9, 2021
I found this book quite fascinating as the author shows, through the eyes of multiple participants, the war in Afghanistan falling apart. While the main character is the female war correspondent, all the other characters, both combatant and non-combatant, play important parts as the war dramatically affects their lives. As such, Patterson uses this work of fiction very effectively to portray how war is chaotic and no one involved comes out unscathed.
June 9, 2017
It takes a while to get going esp with the number of characters. But once it gets you, it's a great read. Solid account of what it may feel like to be in a war theatre - from the angle of all stakeholders
June 18, 2018
Kevin Patterson is a brilliant writer. I have never been in the military, or visited Afghanistan yet finished this book feeling I had experienced both. It is a difficult and painful story he tells, yet impossible to put down. Highly recommended.
Read
July 2, 2019I learned so much by reading this! I had no idea how wars were fought these days.
October 7, 2016
I wish I could have lived with these characters a lot longer than I did, as they were so real and fleshed out and I found myself wanting to spend more time peeking into their lives.
This book did have one major flaw, which was that it needed a stronger editorial read through to fix the many, and there are many, repeated or misspelled words. It was extremely distracting and felt rather sloppy, which is a shame because the writing is very strong. The structure of the story was a little off putting on a couple occasions, when the character point of view would switch without notice. But once again this probably could have been fixed by an edit rather than a change in style. As most other parts where this happens, it is clearly distinguished.
Overall I was thoroughly engrossed by the characters and the story, and my reading experience was just impacted by weak editing.
This book did have one major flaw, which was that it needed a stronger editorial read through to fix the many, and there are many, repeated or misspelled words. It was extremely distracting and felt rather sloppy, which is a shame because the writing is very strong. The structure of the story was a little off putting on a couple occasions, when the character point of view would switch without notice. But once again this probably could have been fixed by an edit rather than a change in style. As most other parts where this happens, it is clearly distinguished.
Overall I was thoroughly engrossed by the characters and the story, and my reading experience was just impacted by weak editing.
October 8, 2016
A very eye-opening view of the world of war seen through the eyes and perspectives of a variety of people who are intimately involved. From the Master Sergeant of supplies, the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of Special Forces, the Pakistani manager of the Green Bean Coffee Shop at KAF all the way to the embedded journalist charged with giving the public an on the ground look at the war, the hopes and dreams of war and peace are displayed with brutal honesty.
A very interesting, although at times very difficult, read.
A very interesting, although at times very difficult, read.
October 19, 2016
The book was tough and great and gave me a sense of the confusion, restraint, order and overall messiness of being a soldier in a difficult situation. Definitely worth reading.
My only critique is a wish that the main characters, particularly those in the army, had more variety in their last names. Soldiers are from diverse backgrounds and have last names that reflect their ancestry- Italian, German, Spanish, Asian etc. This would give me as a reader a better sense of how mixed this group of soldiers can be and also make each character less likely to blend into the other.
My only critique is a wish that the main characters, particularly those in the army, had more variety in their last names. Soldiers are from diverse backgrounds and have last names that reflect their ancestry- Italian, German, Spanish, Asian etc. This would give me as a reader a better sense of how mixed this group of soldiers can be and also make each character less likely to blend into the other.
September 23, 2016
Too many POV's for me, and a slow start, but I finished and enjoyed it. A blend of fact and fiction, well done.
October 2, 2016
Average story, shallow depth to characters.
October 23, 2016
Powerful story, builds steadily to a surprising climax. Well worth the read.
November 11, 2016
Deeply disturbing on so many levels. The torture sections of the book are hard to read. Injustice all around.
December 12, 2016
This novel feels so authentic, I had to constantly remind myself it's fiction. An extremely well-written, thoughtful and sobering look at what modern warfare is really like. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews