Bring Out the Dog: Stories

by Will Mackin

The eleven stories in Will Mackin's mesmerizing debut collection draw from his many deployments with a special operations task force in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began as notes he jotted on the inside of his forearm in grease pencil and, later, as bullet points on the torn-off flap of an MRE kit. Whenever possible he incorporated those notes into his journals. Years later, he used those journals to write this book.

Together, the stories in Bring Out the Dog offer a remarkable portrait of the absurdity and poetry that define life in the most elite, clandestine circles of modern warfare. It is a world of intense bonds, ancient credos, and surprising compassion--of success, failure, and their elusive definitions. Moving between settings at home and abroad, in vivid language that reflects the wonder and discontent of war, Mackin draws the reader into a series of surreal, unsettling, and deeply human episodes: In "Crossing the River No Name," a close call suggests that miracles do exist, even if they are in brutally short supply; in "Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night," the death of the team's beloved dog plunges them into a different kind of grief; in "Kattekoppen," a man struggles to reconcile his commitments as a father and his commitments as a soldier; and in "Baker's Strong Point," a man whose job it is to pull things together struggles with a loss of control.

Told without a trace of false bravado and with a keen, Barry Hannah-like sense of the absurd, Bring Out the Dog manages to capture the tragedy and heroism, the degradation and exultation, in the smallest details of war.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, War, Military Fiction, Contemporary, Adult, Anthologies

173 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2018

About the author

Will Mackin is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Tin House, and The New York Times Magazine. His story “Kattekoppen” was selected by Jennifer Egan for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2014 , and his essay about being an extra on Breaking Bad, published in GQ, was nominated for an American Society of Magazine Editors “Ellie” award. Mackin’s debut collection of short stories, Bring Out the Dog, was published by Random House in March 2018.

Reviews

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story collection is incredibly affecting in a way that is almost imperceptible until after the last page is turned and some time has passed. I have endless daily respect for the members of our military, with special love to those deployed. These stories were like a soaking wet wool coat in July...heavy, uncomfortable, difficult to remove oneself from. I could imagine the author telling these stories to his military brothers; there was an intimacy to them...in a rock carelessly thrown, in an ice machine used as a noisemaker. This collection underscores the immediacy of war and its endless repercussions. It has left me bereft of words to satisfactorily describe its beauty and heartbreak.
4 stars


I haven’t read a book like this since Redeployment, which for me was a 5 Star heartbreaker. This is different but equally important and hard to read.

[Tiff (fictionaltiff) · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Publication date: March 6th, 2018)
War is oftentimes a topic easily swept under the rug; an uncomfortable subject hidden from the average conversation. Sure, who doesn't love stories of heroism and overcoming evil. But Will Mackin's book, Bring Out the Dog, a collection of 11 short stories, dives right into the good, the bad, and the ugly; the uncomfortable and unthinkable experiences that encompass the daily life of a Navy SEAL during wartime in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2008 to 2011.

Mackin, a Navy veteran, has drawn from his own deployment and training experiences to tell the story of the SEALs, men and women who have been trained to protect and serve the American people with "speed and violence." The reader is immediately taken into the Navy brotherhood, with its own culture and lingo, people who have been at the top of the world and the very bottom; seeing death, watching death become part of the daily routine, and causing it in order to make the world a safer place.

This collection of short stories, written from the perspective of journal entries, provides entertainment value; but more importantly, it gives the reader a realistic inside view on what it takes to fight the Taliban. Mackin doesn't sugarcoat or skip over the gruesome details that make up the typical situations that a member of the Navy would face in a deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. While most are stories of deployment, some are of training and life on the base. The stories are brief, but all-encompassing of what Mackin wants to portray to the reader about military life. He shows you the human side of it all, how war changes you and makes you view the world differently.

Not a book for the faint of heart, but a book I'd encourage others to read.

(I received this as an ARC from Random House via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will Mackin's debut collection of eleven short stories about the soldier's experience in Afghanistan and between missions too. Most of the stories are relatively short and often are left open ended. But we are the toll that these tours take on the men and the stories are not for the faint of heart. I look forward to what other writing the author will put out into the literary sphere.

[Deacon Tom (Feeling Better) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very profound book. It tells the horrible feelings associated with war.

This book had a wonderful combination of brotherhood stories and heart-rending stories.

Most stories were from Afghanistan with a few sprinkled in from Utah area


It was truly a serious book that I recommend.

[Jill]

This book was on my radar for many reasons, not the least of which is that George Saunders, one of my literary heroes, mentored Mr. Mackin. Add to this that a couple of these stories appeared in the very discerning New Yorker and that Will Mackin has the authority and chops (he spent years as a member of an elite Navy SEAL team) and it’s easy to see why any literary reader would be intrigued.

My personal favorite in this collection is Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night, opening with the memorial of Mir, the troop’s much-loved bomb-sniffing dog. As Mir is eulogized by his fellow warriors, there is this line: “Regardless, we agreed on one key point: what had driven Mir to launch himself at the triggerman, and kill him so viciously, had been love, pure and simple.” In a world where love and violence are a hair’s breath away, the story is executed brilliantly.

Another story, Kattekoppen – whose name derives from a vile-smelling Dutch candy in the form of brown cat heads with bewildered faces – is also a powerful story, Levi, a howitzer liaison and expectant father, regularly gets these candies from his mother, who doesn’t realize he has long outgrown their taste. The candy is ultimately used inventively to dispel a malodorous slime; nothing is sweet in Logar, Afghanistan. Other stories that resonated were The Lost Troop – an Afghani interpreter’s quixotic side-trip to locate his former teacher—and Crossing the River with No Name, a haunting tale about a man who has already used up his miracles.

But here’s the problem – and I freely admit it’s my problem, not Mr. Mackin’s. War is a fraternity all its own, with its own language and its own unique absurdity. When a book focuses on developed characters – Kevin Powers’ Yellow Birds comes to mind – I’m “all in.” But when the focus is increasingly on war with all its proprietary acronyms, nicknames and lawlessness, I feel as if I’m on the outside looking in. It’s like being dropped in an entirely different and confounding culture. Those who are primed for muscular and vivid wartime narratives, complete with surreal details of warriors’ deployment, will easily rate this 5-stars. Since I am not that kind of reader, it would be unfair for me to provide a rating.

[Karen R · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book’s summary caught my attention as my son recently spent several months in Afghanistan. As suspected, Will’s moving collection of stories based in part on notes written on his arm and incorporated into a journal felt more personal. His observations and details especially related to boots on the ground stuff in the company of other soldiers during deployment were the most powerful and engaging. Thanks to Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Donna Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Macklin can really write. His disquieting collection of short stories draws from his time as a special operations soldier in Iran and Afghanistan. Some soldiers come home and go crazy, if they aren’t already; this one came home to write. Thanks go to Random House and Net Galley for the DRC.

The skill level that is shown in these eleven stories, from setting, to pacing, to character, is tremendous. That said, I found it hard to read. Given the subject matter, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it rattled my cage more than most; then too, the opening story involves deliberately blowing up the home of a teacher that one of the local allies disliked, and I suspect that other teachers are going to have a tough time with that one, too. I set the collection aside to shake off my dislike, and then plunged in again. To be fair, there isn’t one of these tales that is designed to be a feel-good read. They’re all intended to move readers out of their comfort zones, and the author succeeds richly for this reviewer.

I am not a fan of ambiguous endings, and all of these stories conclude that way, which is where the single star fell off my rating.

The most impressive addition is “Kattekoppen”, and after I noted this, I discovered that it was included in a best short story collection.

Macklin is a writer to watch. This collection is recommended to those that like war stories.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across Mackin's writing through the New Yorker, which published his vivid, lyrical essay "Crossing The River No Name." This collection, which includes the piece that first drew me into Mackin's writing, is a series of related short stories about a Navy SEAL's deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mackin's writing is crisp, clear, and pulls no punches in his personal account of war.

Some of it is pretty fucked up; there is no fog of war here. The stories depict the harassment and detention of children; the emotional pain of mothers and wives; boredom alleviated by concocting missions against innocent old foes; and of course a surplus of death and destruction. But it is all told in a truthful, unflinching way, like Mackin is telling us, "this is fiction, yes, but this is what really happened out there."

Mackin is a master storyteller and the detail of these essays is just brilliant. 5/5 stars.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reading copy.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kattekoppen were brown cat heads with bewildered faces. They made me think of a bombing attack I’d been involved in, in Helmand, during a previous deployment . . .


Kattekoppen: an awful tasting Dutch candy, possibly handy to have around while you're waiting to die in Afghanistan.

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of the eleven short stories, there were only one or two that left me rather meh. The rest of this collection was awesome. Mackin knows how to tell a tale and this book is one I would highly recommend to others. A few quotes from some of my favorite stories:

“The room filled with soldiers feigning indifference, but every one of them had ideas about the war. The variety of ideas among soldiers developed into a variety of ideas among units, which necessitated an operational priority scheme. As SEAL Team Six, we were at the top of that scheme. Our ideas about the war were the war. Therefore, we could knock on any unit’s door in the middle of the night, assemble the soldiers in a room, and tell them what was what.” – p. 36 (from Kattekoppen)

“If we’d been asked how long we’d go on searching, our answer would have been: as long as it takes. Think of the families back home. Baby Chin. Mother No Chin. But in truth there were limits, and we had methods for determining them. From the streaks of blood found in the drag marks, we ascertained wounds. From the wounds, we developed timelines. And we presented these timelines on a chart, which read from top to bottom, best case to worst. By the time that village lit up beside us, we were at the bottom of the chart. The next night, we started looking for graves.” – p. 45-46 (from Kattekoppen)

“Once upon a time, there’d been no such thing as a tank. Men had fought to a standstill using rifles, mortars, and artillery. Then someone had an idea to break through the lines: a heavily armored vehicle mounted with a cannon. So the first tank came to be, and it did its job well, until it was outgunned and outmaneuvered by a better tank. Then a new idea was hatched, and a new and improved tank came along. Eventually, that new and improved tank also became outgunned and outmaneuvered, requiring an even better tank, and so on. Some of the obsolete tanks wound up being sold to foreign nations—Egypt, Kuwait, Peru. Others decorated the lawns outside VFWs. Still others were sent here, to Baker’s Strong, where they were crushed, burned, twisted, and melted back into ideas.” – p. 73-74 (from Baker’s Strong Point)

““She doesn’t need your help,” I said. “She just needs another dumbass to believe her bullshit.”” – p. 80 (from Baker’s Strong Point)

[deep]

PW Starred: In this spellbinding, adrenaline-fueled debut linked collection, Mackin pulls from his own time in the Navy to follow a team of SEALs who, from 2008 to 2011, serve and try to survive together, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each story explodes with dust and dread as the SEALs are sent to recover the bodies of missing soldiers who were kidnapped south of Kabul; come to blows over chocolate milk in the mess hall; and snub a fellow SEAL who, disoriented in a cornfield one night, accidentally shoots the team’s beloved bomb-sniffing dog. “We could forgive fear, but not the inability to control it,” the narrator explains when the unfortunate man sits waiting with his bags after the incident. Throughout the book, though, it is the language as much as the experience that drives the action, creating taut, almost terrifying suspense. Mackin’s masterful prose is both poetic and aggressive. In one of the collection’s most haunting stories, “Crossing the River No Name,” the men are preparing for an ambush against a group of Taliban fighters emerging from the mountains of Pakistan, “the type of mission that earlier in the war would have been fun.” Before the mission’s end, they will rediscover that, just because the war has become repetitive and futile, it doesn’t mean anyone is safe. In this story, and indeed in the whole unforgettable collection, the men fighting this war know better than anyone how tragic each loss is. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners. (Mar.)

[Kaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Feathers” was our code word for women.”

There’s an unwritten rule that you can’t have women in your war story. Female characters are fine, as long as they’re abstract like the strip dancer you left back in Nevada or the Muslim girls you can’t talk to in Iraq. But women, making their own decisions, having independent personalities? Not fit for “Slaughterhouse Five,” or “All Quiet On The Western Front,” or even quasi-war books like “The Catcher In The Rye.” Not in my war story. Maybe this is an important part of the war experience for young dudes, and a book about The War that didn’t feature isolation from women would feel inauthentic. Or maybe it’s a holdover from an earlier generation of books, where women weren’t considered important enough to care about what they were thinking. Either way, without them, to me these books feel incomplete.

Actually, the whole feel of “Bring Out The Dog” is intentional incompleteness. We begin a number of stories about a fictional SEAL team, but the stories never get resolved. Did he die? Did they find the bomber? WHAT’S IN THE BLACK BOX? The short stories don’t start in media res, but they always end in it. Maybe this is another part of the modern war experience—the feeling that it’s not ever truly over. There’s always another deployment, there’s always another bombing run. It’s a bottomless pit, barbed so you can only go one direction.

”We’d had good nights and bad. Mostly good, early on; then the bad nights had started to accumulate. Toward the end of our second deployment, they’d pulled about even. Midway through our third, bad nights had surpassed good. I don’t know how future deployments were going to play out, but the trend was worrisome.”

In the beginning, all these loose end stories build tension, but as the book progresses, the tension just gets tiring. If it wasn’t such a short book, it would become a slog. Maybe it should have been a slog. Maybe that would have felt more real.

[Michael Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t often read the fiction on the New Yorker but I was captivated by the opening paragraph of the author’s short story, one of many that sparkle and shine in this collection. In one of the innumerable winter’s of the Afghanistan war, the author and his SEAL Team sat on a remote mountain outpost and wondered “whether they had declared peace and not told them.”

There are a cacophony of published books detailing the exploits of U.S. Navy Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) and U.S. Army Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn’t one of them. This is short fiction executed at a high level. The voice of the author is remarkable. I read the last story with regret.

I admit that, having served a year in Iraq during 2003-04, I had great empathy for the characters in these stories. Although, by comparison, I was operating at a high school football level, and they were in the National Football League.

But they paid a much greater price that I did. And that bothered me.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5* feel bad giving it this, cause it’s somewhere in between fiction and non fiction based on the authors tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I found the writing itself jumped around a bit and was confusing as he used military terms which I obviously don’t know. Maybe this book just wasn’t for me. I also don’t really support the USAs involvement in Afghanistan and what it’s done to the citizens there. So reading the stories of these soldiers made me uncomfortable and sympathize with the civilians who had to deal with these soldiers coming into their homes and holding them at gunpoint.
I kept waiting for some kind of commentary on what war does to a person, how it turns you violent or makes you do things you didn’t think you could, or you just follow orders even when you are hesitant. However instead I read him describe a sense of joy or pride while hunting down people, and never voiced too much remorse for civilian deaths. Soooo I was hoping for something different in that respect.

[Carl Waluconis · Rating 4 out of 5]

These short stories are first-person soldier descriptions of the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or preparation for them in the US. They are straight forward descriptions. The other soldiers have opinions, but the narrator not so many. The writing is economical, which works to make it convincing and direct. At times the narrator drifts into a sort of dream state, a sort of quick change of perspective to see things differently, mixed in with the technical apparatus they wear into battle. A few of the stories have identical characters, but all have similar characters. The people whose homes are being invaded are also part of the stories. Truly, I have not read much written from inside these conflicts. This left me with strong impressions - I leave you to find yours. I look forward to more from Will Mackin, wondering how a novel from him will go.

[Denny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of stories about elite American military units in training and in combat in the early 21st century. Mackin does a nice job of conveying the malaise and ennui that seasoned combatants are at risk of enduring. I was disappointed at a few of the stories' unsatisfactory endings. It's possible, of course, that I misinterpreted the book's main theme, but it seems to me Mackin offers an indictment of endless war and combatants who have no clear sense of their ultimate objective in fighting. If you liked Phil Klay's Redeployment, you'll probably like Bring Out the Dog as well.

[Conor Heilferty · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are excellent and as someone who struggles to engage with the war in Afghanistan as an example of humanity and survival, this collection deftly displays both within its pages. Mackin’s anxious imagery really crackles on the page and while not every story lands perfectly, they do capture an essence of modern war that I have yet to experience in similar literature on the subject.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. 5 stars for the gorgeous language and composition, but I could not connect with any of the characters, and the plots/storylines did not hold my attention. The audiobook narrator's voice was too soft and lethargic.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking its place as one of my favorite short story collections of all time. Mackin can really tell a story. His sentences are exquisite. Right up there with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, this is the definitive (for me) short story collection about the Iraq/Afghanistan experience. A masterpiece. Get it and read it.

[Kate K · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars from me.
The good: These stories do not paint the war in Afghanistan as romantic at all. I’m very weary of war stories as entertainment, and very much appreciate that these stories are based on Mackin’s own experiences.
The bad: the endearing nature of the brisk, open-ended stories lost its charm for me quickly. I would have preferred a short novel, as I felt a little rushed. The story ended just as I was getting acquainted with it, and while that was intentional I did not particularly enjoy this style.
The very bad: the stories contained within are pretty fucked up. As in, upsetting. Only read if you are at peak emotional stability and wanting to stare into the darkness.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very underwhelming. It’s one of those short story collections where you can ask me what it was about in a month and the only thing I’d be able to respond with/remember is, “war.”

[James Brundage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written. It left me wanting more.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Electric streaks of rain fell straight down on my night vision. Cold rose from the mud into my bones. It squeezed the warmth out of my heart. My heart became a more sensitive instrument as a result, and I could feel the Taliban out there, lost in the darkness. I could feel them in the distance, losing hope. This was the type of mission that earlier in the war would've been fun: us knowing and seeing, them dumb and blind. Hal, walking point, would've turned around and smiled, like, Do you believe we're getting paid for this? And I would've shaken my head, like, No. But now Hal hardly turned around. And when he did, it was only to make sure that we were all still behind him, putting one foot in front of the other, bleeding heat, our emerald hearts growing dim."

I was really taken aback by this collection of short stories by a former soldier. The structure itself is unique. These 11 stories take place in the US (Georgia and Utah), Afghanistan, and Iraq, from the start of both of the wars in the Middle East until the early 2010s. Each setting features a set of characters that you see in multiple stories. I think this repeating cast highlighted the ceaselessness of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what psychological impacts that they have on the soldiers who are wrapped up in the quagmire of an armed conflict without a clear purpose. In that, some of the stories felt a bit repetitive but this served to affirm the perpetual war that these characters are stuck in. Overall, the stories are very surreal through the violence, fatigue, and arrogance that has no choice but to overshadow soldiers' humanity in wartime. If you have any doubt about the value of a collection such as these, I refer you to George Saunders' blurb on the back cover.

[Carol Custer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into these stories though that may be more my fault than the stories. I think perhaps the stories will appeal more to a male audience, especially those men who have been in the military and can relate to the subjects.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slim but potent, this collection is one of the best works of fiction to come out of America's Forever War. It's also my new favorite book, by far, that's authored by or otherwise about special operators - in this case, Navy SEALs. But don't let that put you off. This is not a kill memoir, nothing like AMERICAN SNIPER or the multitude of other accounts in that vein. BRING OUT THE DOG reads more like something Denis Johnson might have written if he'd embedded with a SEAL team for ten years. The style is on the simple side with a plainspoken wryness, while still employing enough figurative language, symbolism and free association to evoke a dreamlike sense of realism: this is real life, we know, but as it might be interpreted in uneasy dreams which are then rendered into prose artifacts by the dreamer. Unlike a lot of literature authored by former service members, these stories are mostly concerned with the experience of war itself, not with homecoming or the lingering aftereffects of war on veterans. A great work, highly recommended.

[Sara Cutaia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a clear talent in Will Mackin's storytelling. I don't know why I'm drawn to war stories, but just like Redeployment, I couldn't stop reading Bring Out The Dog. There is such attention to detail in these 11 stories, and all of it is purposeful. It makes the stories impactful on both an emotional and a technical level. Stories written by real-life soldiers are chilling, and even though Mackin has labeled these as fiction, it's not hard to imagine the authenticity comes from real-life events. There's nothing exaggerated about them; they're just forthright and honest and stunning.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Men, Men, Men, doing Manly war things. This collection ended up not being for me, I didn't see the depth implied in the jacket description and while it didn't glorify war it certainly glossed over quite a bit (thankfully I have to say, I didn't like much what was included). Excellent writing however and Mackin definitely gives you a sense of place and part of the task force. Great for those who like war stories.

[Rory James Gilfillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting

This was an interesting read and most stories end abruptly and without any kind of resolution. However the way these stories are written is haunting and beautiful The poetic description of what the world looks like through a night scope will stay with Mr

[Allen Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.themaineedge.com/style/the...

From every war comes art inspired by that war. The pressures and pains of conflict have proven fertile ground for creators since the days of ancient Greece and Homer’s “Iliad.” There’s loads of room for disparate feelings and emotions - hurt, heart, humor, hubris and much more – in tales from the battlefield.

America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no different; some remarkable art has sprung from those fallow fields. Music, movies, literature – all have found ways to reflect the people, places and ideas of our country’s lengthy hitch in the Middle East.

With his debut collection “Bring Out the Dog,” Will Mackin has produced something that holds up alongside the very best war literature of the 21st century. These remarkable stories – 11 in all – are inspired by Mackin’s time deployed with a special ops task force in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They began life as notes jotted down on torn-off flaps of cardboard boxes or even on his own forearm. From there, these thoughts and observations made their way into Mackin’s journals. And those journals served as the foundational material to build this book.

These stories are powerful portraits of men at war, capturing the desperate passion and brutal absurdity of the battlefield. They are filled with grit and honesty, unflinching in their warts-and-all approach to narrative. These tales crackle with an energetic truth that is enthralling and occasionally jaw-dropping.

Every single one of these stories sings; I’ve got my personal highlights, but your mileage may vary. One that might get overlooked is “Rib Night,” which digs deep into some of the personal pressures these soldiers face and how they alleviate them, whether it be through fistfights or fistfuls of pills. It is deeply personal while presenting truths that feel universal. But in truth, they’re all excellent; “Welcome Man Will Never Fly,” “Baker’s Strong Point” “Crossing the River With No Name” are pieces that I loved, but every story – really, every SENTENCE - is impressive and impactful.

My favorite – the one that gets my vote as best of the bunch – is “Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night,” a tale that begins with a literal rain of s—t and treads through the fallout following the death of the team’s beloved dog at the hands of one of their own. It’s a meditation on the many forms that grief can take and the many causes it can have. It encapsulates beautifully the combination of pathos and dark humor that flows through every one of these exquisite 11.

From the book’s introductory story - “The Lost Troop,” Mackin’s well-placed choice to bring us into his world that features a group of soldiers undertaking an unexpected mission on behalf of an unexpected comrade – to its finale, the tense and complex “Backmask,” where a soldier searches for answers while flooded by thoughts of Kipling and Led Zeppelin, “Bring Out the Dog” is relentless, constructing a propulsive and powerful glimpse into a war-torn world many of us simply do not understand.

These wars have become situations largely lacking in black and white. The gray areas have grown large, casting shadows of uncertainty. Through Mackin’s words, we see circumstances where concepts like success and failure are fluid, with seemingly dichotomous notions like tragedy and triumph instead containing elements of one another.

War lends itself to grand, epic narratives. Creating tales to match that scale is important; our art should reflect the scope of that experience. But of equal importance are stories like those that Mackin is telling, stories built around the individual experience of soldiers on the front. Showing what it really means to be one person in the midst of this massive mechanism, a cog in the wheels of warfare, can’t be easy, but someone like Mackin – someone who has been that person – is uniquely suited to do so.

“Bring Out the Dog” is both complex and compelling, offering up small glimpses of the surreal alongside moments of heartbreak and of heroism. Mackin’s prose displays a deftness that belies its basic muscularity; it’s an ideal mix in terms of presenting these stories with the ring of genuine truth. Conflicts internal and external alike are brought to bear in ways that break the heart and buoy the spirit – often at the same time.

This is a brilliant debut, a work unafraid to use brute force to evoke an uncommon grace. Mackin’s vision consummately captures the lives of soldiers dealing with the physical and psychological stresses of a seemingly unending war.

Time will tell whether this book finds its spot among the best American creative works born of these wars, but from where I’m sitting, it’ll be awfully difficult to deny “Bring Out the Dog” a place at that table. It is magnificent.

[E.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different wars generate different types of literature. This seems obvious, but it's interesting to note the differences between wars that are happening simultaneously, and even involve some of the same countries, but nonetheless produce stories of different flavors.

Case in point: Western literature on the recent war in Iraq seems to be alternately gritty ("The Sandbox") and ra-ra ("American Sniper"). Meanwhile, Afghanistan tends to produce stories that are a lot more...dreamlike, as if the authors, be they British, American, or Soviet, have imbibed in the poppies for which the region is famous. This can be seen in Oleg Yermakov's "Afghan Tales," about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with its hallucinatory intercutting between war and civilian life, and its turtles that turn into tanks, and tanks that turn into turtles. It can be seen in British author Harry Parker's "Anatomy of a Soldier," which tracks a British soldier's wounding and recovery in a frequently non-chronological manner from the point of view of the objects the protagonist comes into contact with. And now American Navy veteran and author Will Mackin has produced a collection of short stories, largely but not entirely set in Afghanistan, that alternate between realist portrayals of the activities of a group of Navy SEALs, and the hallucinations/visions/premonitions of the unnamed narrator.

In many ways "Bring Out the Dog" is clearly Post-9/11 American Military Writing, Subtype B: Literary. Paragraphs tend to be short, and sentences, declarative. There's a reasonable number of acronyms and enough bad language, frequently misogynistic, to make it clear that these are military men telling military tales. Gritty (by American standards) details such as the disposal of human feces through burning are judiciously included, but not so much that the author can be accused of writing war porn.

What sets "Bring Out the Dog" apart from its brethren is its almost magic realism feel, as its nameless narrator (or narrators?) floats in and out of dream states, witnessing how things don't go the way they're supposed to, or even the opposite: instead of heroic missions, the characters go on raids of empty compounds, arrest teenagers, and accidentally shoot their own. And instead of the emphasis on intense emotion that much of modern war writing has, these stories take place in a semi-trance state, with everything seeing to happen very far away, maybe in a dream, maybe in a drugged state, maybe just in a state of complete exhaustion and adrenal overload. In some ways it's the closest American equivalent I've read to Russian bestseller Zakhar Prilepin's stories, which, in case you're wondering, is high praise indeed. (Someday Prilepin's "Pathologies" will be translated into English, maybe by me, and the American reading public will...run and hide, most likely. But that's a tale for a different time).

There's a sort of a plot connecting the stories of "Bring Out the Dog" (maybe), as they track the unnamed "I" through multiple deployments in Afghanistan and then Iraq, with interludes for training in the US, but this isn't a "what happens next" kind of book, although the individual stories are quite gripping. Instead it's a "what's happening now" kind of book, as the reader is plunged into the narrator's state of mind. Drug trips, whether of externally ingested or self-generated drugs, are harder to write than many authors think, but Macklin captures a certain out-of-it mindset with pitch-perfect precision, depicting night raids and nightmares with equal laconic realism. Readers looking for "American Sniper" like gung-ho war stories will probably be disappointed, but readers looking for something new and interesting in the world of military literary fiction should definitely check this book out.