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The Surge
After a tour in Afghanistan and a brutal wound, Larry Chandler was done. Then came the 2007 troop surge and a redeployment to Iraq. With only five weeks left on their tour, Chandler and the men he leads are assigned a dangerous mission. While his men crave action, Chandler just hopes they'll all make it home alive.
Inspired by his deployments, Adam Kovac's debut novel reveals the complexity of modern military service, the struggle of our soldiers to connect, and the cost of achieving military objectives that, while they may be good for politics, are paid for with human lives.
Inspired by his deployments, Adam Kovac's debut novel reveals the complexity of modern military service, the struggle of our soldiers to connect, and the cost of achieving military objectives that, while they may be good for politics, are paid for with human lives.
- GenresFiction
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2019
702 people want to read
About the author
Adam Kovac
1 book18 followersAdam Kovac writes novels, short stories, and content for tabletop role-playing games.
He's the author of the forthcoming science-fiction/horror novel HAUNTED SPACE: PARADISE FOR EXTINCTION (November, 2026), and THE SURGE, a novel of the Iraq War.
Creator of the HARD VACUUM series of science fiction role-playing game adventures, Adam's work has appeared in the Scoundrels of Brixton setting, Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society and elsewhere. His short fiction was published in The Ampersand Review. He also consulted on the audiobook edition of Billy Summers, by Stephen King.
A former journalist, Adam covered the crime and court beats for newspapers in Indiana, Florida and Illinois. He also served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, with deployments to Panama, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan, and an overseas tour in the Republic of South Korea.
Adam earned a Bachelor of Arts from Purdue University, a Master of Arts from the University of Illinois Springfield, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Northwestern University. He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and son.
He's the author of the forthcoming science-fiction/horror novel HAUNTED SPACE: PARADISE FOR EXTINCTION (November, 2026), and THE SURGE, a novel of the Iraq War.
Creator of the HARD VACUUM series of science fiction role-playing game adventures, Adam's work has appeared in the Scoundrels of Brixton setting, Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society and elsewhere. His short fiction was published in The Ampersand Review. He also consulted on the audiobook edition of Billy Summers, by Stephen King.
A former journalist, Adam covered the crime and court beats for newspapers in Indiana, Florida and Illinois. He also served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, with deployments to Panama, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan, and an overseas tour in the Republic of South Korea.
Adam earned a Bachelor of Arts from Purdue University, a Master of Arts from the University of Illinois Springfield, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Northwestern University. He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 6, 2019
So, full disclosure, I'm the author's wife. I saw all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into writing this. Also, I helped edit the early drafts. (So 5 stars for the grammar alone!) The prose is spare -- like deployment life -- there are no frills. This book will give you a real and true account of what it's like to walk in a soldier's boots.
February 14, 2019
An very human story of alienation and loneliness set amidst the horrors of modern war. Adam gives us a brief snapshot of life on the battlefield with characters that are both relatable and pitiable. This book is a must-read!
February 28, 2019
I really enjoyed this powerful, compassionate, multi-layered story about a soldier’s final deployment to Iraq. Unlike some other war novels, it’s not sentimental or sensational, not action-packed from end-to-end. In fact, much of the book tends to be quiet and contemplative, although there is a persistent buzz humming in the background as if you can just feel that something awful can happen at any moment.
Kovac gives us strong dialogue (notably for me the scenes between the protagonist (Chandler) and First Sergeant Flowers) and excellent prose throughout, like the following passage: “They smoked hookahs and sipped chai steeped in brass kettles, waiting on barefoot boys to scrub their jalopy cars and trucks with water ferried from the ditches in buckets. Bedouins whipped the columns of camels trekking to the markets. Iraqi policemen in blue lapelled shirts and creased pants at sandbagged checkpoints beneath each of the underpasses. Here the road became pockmarked with jagged craters. Black motor oil stains where gun trucks hit by a bomb coasted a few feet before they’d stopped and burned with the crews locked inside.”
One of the themes I found particularly interesting was the indelible mark war leaves on a soldier’s identity, like a cataclysmic event, and how profoundly challenging it must be to go back to “real life” and yet have this “military life” you can never truly leave behind. Chandler thinks about being in school at Michigan State had he not been deployed and having to “pretend he wasn’t a billboard of the Hollywood veteran with a broken body and brain and no future.” To a group of soldiers heading home, he says, “‘People, man, they won’t shut up. Watch. They’ll keep asking what you’re going to do now that you’re back home. Compared to life downrange, I think it might be impossible to find anything as interesting.’” Despite how awful war can be, once there, for some it may harder to go back to the real world. First Sergeant Flowers tells Chandler, “‘Civilian world. It’s a dead end. Man knows where he stands here. Where he belongs.’”
I also found it interesting how Kovac explores the unique, almost unnatural relationship among soldiers, both those who are alive and those who have died. Chandler seems to struggle with knowing whether he should view his fellow soldiers as men or resources. And one question it begs is how close do you get to people who may die the next day or who might leave and go home never to be seen or heard from again. Kovac writes about Chandler and the fellow soldiers he watched perish: “[Chandler] loved Tran and Dempsey and Sergeant Reed. He knew the love was different than loving family or a woman. But it’d been real and now it was gone...”
Excellent debut novel from Kovac. Highly recommend.
Kovac gives us strong dialogue (notably for me the scenes between the protagonist (Chandler) and First Sergeant Flowers) and excellent prose throughout, like the following passage: “They smoked hookahs and sipped chai steeped in brass kettles, waiting on barefoot boys to scrub their jalopy cars and trucks with water ferried from the ditches in buckets. Bedouins whipped the columns of camels trekking to the markets. Iraqi policemen in blue lapelled shirts and creased pants at sandbagged checkpoints beneath each of the underpasses. Here the road became pockmarked with jagged craters. Black motor oil stains where gun trucks hit by a bomb coasted a few feet before they’d stopped and burned with the crews locked inside.”
One of the themes I found particularly interesting was the indelible mark war leaves on a soldier’s identity, like a cataclysmic event, and how profoundly challenging it must be to go back to “real life” and yet have this “military life” you can never truly leave behind. Chandler thinks about being in school at Michigan State had he not been deployed and having to “pretend he wasn’t a billboard of the Hollywood veteran with a broken body and brain and no future.” To a group of soldiers heading home, he says, “‘People, man, they won’t shut up. Watch. They’ll keep asking what you’re going to do now that you’re back home. Compared to life downrange, I think it might be impossible to find anything as interesting.’” Despite how awful war can be, once there, for some it may harder to go back to the real world. First Sergeant Flowers tells Chandler, “‘Civilian world. It’s a dead end. Man knows where he stands here. Where he belongs.’”
I also found it interesting how Kovac explores the unique, almost unnatural relationship among soldiers, both those who are alive and those who have died. Chandler seems to struggle with knowing whether he should view his fellow soldiers as men or resources. And one question it begs is how close do you get to people who may die the next day or who might leave and go home never to be seen or heard from again. Kovac writes about Chandler and the fellow soldiers he watched perish: “[Chandler] loved Tran and Dempsey and Sergeant Reed. He knew the love was different than loving family or a woman. But it’d been real and now it was gone...”
Excellent debut novel from Kovac. Highly recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2019
Alas, all good things must end. Burned my way through half
the book in one night, two more for all but the last pages, then forced myself to leave the last few pages for weeks. The lesson of this book is perseverance and balance. Adam had all but given up on it when a small house picked it up. But it’s also a lesson in how to balance literary with genre - there’s plenty of good character development we’d expect from literary fiction; but there’s also a clear narrative propelling the story and giving it momentum, more a hallmark of genre fiction. I can’t say I’ve seen this level of balance in anything I’ve read from contemporary war lit that compare with The Surge, to include some award-winning work.
the book in one night, two more for all but the last pages, then forced myself to leave the last few pages for weeks. The lesson of this book is perseverance and balance. Adam had all but given up on it when a small house picked it up. But it’s also a lesson in how to balance literary with genre - there’s plenty of good character development we’d expect from literary fiction; but there’s also a clear narrative propelling the story and giving it momentum, more a hallmark of genre fiction. I can’t say I’ve seen this level of balance in anything I’ve read from contemporary war lit that compare with The Surge, to include some award-winning work.
June 25, 2019
Kovac writes with journalistic matter-of-factness and quiet lyricism about the lives of ground soldiers in Iraq. We're probably in the first real wave of Gulf War lit, and this isn't just a good book; it's an important one.
January 12, 2024
“People are rattled,” Chandler said.
“No reason to lose control,” said Mackenzie.
“Plenty of reason, boss.”
(p. 118)
So vivid that it’s haunting me with replays that feel like memories of a life I haven’t lived. Full disclosure: the author and I were the best of friends four decades ago, young adolescents feasting on a diet of Atari, RPGs, Playboy, and adventure flicks. Our paths diverged, much to my regret. I am grateful for the opportunity to reconnect vicariously through fiction encoding the author’s experiences on his path. Would that I could compose a work this powerful to share mine. Easily on the top shelf of novels I’ve read on the soldier’s experience. I’d heard the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of the Global War on Terror described as YouTube wars, in that the most impactful media depictions of the conflict were coming through streaming video, whereas World War I was captured most notably by poetry, World War II by novels, and Vietnam by motion pictures. That opinion is reductionist and came before the publication of this novel, which can stand proudly with the literary outputs of those who experienced those earlier wars.
“No reason to lose control,” said Mackenzie.
“Plenty of reason, boss.”
(p. 118)
So vivid that it’s haunting me with replays that feel like memories of a life I haven’t lived. Full disclosure: the author and I were the best of friends four decades ago, young adolescents feasting on a diet of Atari, RPGs, Playboy, and adventure flicks. Our paths diverged, much to my regret. I am grateful for the opportunity to reconnect vicariously through fiction encoding the author’s experiences on his path. Would that I could compose a work this powerful to share mine. Easily on the top shelf of novels I’ve read on the soldier’s experience. I’d heard the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of the Global War on Terror described as YouTube wars, in that the most impactful media depictions of the conflict were coming through streaming video, whereas World War I was captured most notably by poetry, World War II by novels, and Vietnam by motion pictures. That opinion is reductionist and came before the publication of this novel, which can stand proudly with the literary outputs of those who experienced those earlier wars.
July 13, 2025
The Surge, by Adam Kovac, is the story of a soldier, Corporal Larry Chandler, wounded in Afghanistan early in America’s “Forever Wars” and then recalled from the inactive reserves to help fill the ranks of a National Guard unit during The Surge — the effort to quell rising levels of violence in Iraq by quickly increasing troop levels. It is a grunt’s-eye view of the daily grind of post-invasion soldiering in Iraq and, through flashbacks, Afghanistan. Limited in scope, the narrative is nonetheless rich with details that ring true and splendidly nuanced characters.
Chandler’s time in Afghanistan has given him perspective missing from the Guard soldiers he’s tasked with leading through the final five weeks of their deployment. Having experienced first-hand the violence and randomness of war, he has both physical and mental scars. Although he likely could have tried to use his wounding to secure a non-combat role, or even to fight the recall, Chandler passively accepts his fate as a sort of penance. When he is explicitly given the choice (although in a seemingly disingenuous way), Chandler resolves to help his soldiers survive.
Much of the story takes place on a forward operating base in Southern Iraq but there is a closeness, an intimacy, to the narrative regardless of the setting. Readers brush shoulders with Chandler and the others in the mess hall, the front seat of an armored vehicle, or sweating on an observation post in a sweltering room in an abandoned building. Anyone who’s served will smile knowingly at the dark humor and situational craziness threaded throughout.
History in general is under attack these days by folks who want to twist facts to suit preferred narratives, but one of my particular concerns is that as a nation we’ve decided it’s best to just forget our wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq. Understandable perhaps for the politicians who’d prefer a collective amnesia to being held to account for their endorsement or passivity, but there is too a studied non-remembrance by the public at large — the folks who kept going to the mall while vapidly thanking those who served. I’m also concerned that many Forever Wars veterans seem to agree with this effort.
We will likely never see those responsible held to account, but stories — fiction or non-fiction — by veterans of these wars are vitally important to our understanding of what happened during that period. In this particular instance, there is the added bonus of The Surge being just a tremendously engaging read, too.
Chandler’s time in Afghanistan has given him perspective missing from the Guard soldiers he’s tasked with leading through the final five weeks of their deployment. Having experienced first-hand the violence and randomness of war, he has both physical and mental scars. Although he likely could have tried to use his wounding to secure a non-combat role, or even to fight the recall, Chandler passively accepts his fate as a sort of penance. When he is explicitly given the choice (although in a seemingly disingenuous way), Chandler resolves to help his soldiers survive.
Much of the story takes place on a forward operating base in Southern Iraq but there is a closeness, an intimacy, to the narrative regardless of the setting. Readers brush shoulders with Chandler and the others in the mess hall, the front seat of an armored vehicle, or sweating on an observation post in a sweltering room in an abandoned building. Anyone who’s served will smile knowingly at the dark humor and situational craziness threaded throughout.
History in general is under attack these days by folks who want to twist facts to suit preferred narratives, but one of my particular concerns is that as a nation we’ve decided it’s best to just forget our wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq. Understandable perhaps for the politicians who’d prefer a collective amnesia to being held to account for their endorsement or passivity, but there is too a studied non-remembrance by the public at large — the folks who kept going to the mall while vapidly thanking those who served. I’m also concerned that many Forever Wars veterans seem to agree with this effort.
We will likely never see those responsible held to account, but stories — fiction or non-fiction — by veterans of these wars are vitally important to our understanding of what happened during that period. In this particular instance, there is the added bonus of The Surge being just a tremendously engaging read, too.
“You never served in peacetime,” he said. “Training for a battle that never happens. It’s like being a librarian in a world without books. Trust me, that’s insanity.”
— Kovac, Adam. The Surge (p. 181). Tortoise Books. Kindle Edition
October 9, 2019
It was hard for me to place myself in this book. By the time I got to where I could understand (somewhat) the soldiers’ elliptical conversations, I was halfway through the book. Eventually, I got to the point where it seemed like a story and not like a bunch of random events.
Gosh, that last sentence sounds terrible. I think part of the point is that to a soldier, the events can seem random even when you’re in them. Also, they probably would have seemed less random to me if I had any knowledge of warfare, or if what it’s like to be a soldier.
Gosh, that last sentence sounds terrible. I think part of the point is that to a soldier, the events can seem random even when you’re in them. Also, they probably would have seemed less random to me if I had any knowledge of warfare, or if what it’s like to be a soldier.
December 23, 2020
America’s 21st century forever wars have produced some of the finest, and most confrontive, literature of the past twenty years. By finest, I mean good, lyrical writing. By confrontive, I mean the act of placing in front of the reader the fact that America’s youth have been dying in wars that are as forgotten as they are endless. With The Surge, Adam Kovac joins this panoply. If, like me, you read Orwell’s 1984 and wondered what one of those nameless, faceless soldiers might have experienced, here he is, incarnate, in Larry Chandler.
April 15, 2019
This was a Goodreads win. The story was good, but I felt that there was a lot that was not told about Chandler and his comrades. That we are only told a brief portion of what the men in war actually go through. My heart goes out to the men and their families.
December 19, 2019
A clearly-presented story about the modern soldier. Kovac takes us into the dust and confusion of Iraq, so we can experience this war as it is experienced by those who have had to fight it on our behalf. He's a promising young writer, and I look forward to what he produces next.
April 4, 2019
I won this book off Goodreads. Awesome book. Highly recommend.
May 28, 2025
Rating: 5* of five
The Publisher Says: Larry Chandler knows what his fellow soldiers don’t—that war scars you and haunts you, leaving you with memories you’d prefer not to face. They’re all National Guardsmen serving together in Iraq, but he’s already done a stint in Afghanistan, whereas they’re fresh-faced youngsters on their first tour. The new soldiers are eager for something more interesting than life on a firebase, or boring guard duty at isolated outposts—and they’re about to get their wish.
Adam Kovac has written one of the great novels of The Forever Wars—one that captures both the dust and grit and sweat of soldiers on patrol, and the surrealism of their lives back on base. (Where they might be checking Facebook and ordering lattes one minute, and dodging mortars the next.) In its first edition, it earned comparisons to the likes of Hemingway, Mailer, and O’Brien; this revised second edition promises to find it the audience it so richly deserves.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm connected with Author Kovac across social platforms for ages now, because we support and repost stuff that falls into a leftier, less manosphere-friendly vibe. I got a copy of the DRC from his publisher without mentioning it to him, when one fine day he slid into my DMs asking if I wanted to read it.
Thus proving the old adage "you know your own."
Another old adage proved in this read is "be careful what you ask the gods for lest their answer be 'yes.'" Larry Chandler muses at one point that he doesn't know what to do with the genuine, but not civilian-life-friendly, love he feels for fallen comrades. It's real, this unnamed grief, but it's so very not part of the life your friends, family, spouse at home are leading that you can't see what you can do with it.
For me, that was the emotional heart of this read. In The Yellow Birds , Bartle has a job of work to explain how he survived and another man didn't. In Matterhorn , one of my annual 6*-of-five reads, Waino Mellas had the same gigantic realization in Vietnam. If you're sensing a theme, you're on my signal pretty tightly.
Why I read these war-experience novels by veterans is easy to explain. They are always real and honest; they carry some burden the veteran wants to put down; and they are almost always so polished in the author's writerly imagination that some genuinely lovely turn of phrase leaps out at me:
Terse, not flowery, not fancy, but impactful like the sound of an IED just out of sight is.
Why I like reading these stories is also easy to explain. I will never have an experience like this. Even if, as I suspect is the case, this inner conflict ripping up the US does not end without bloodshed, it will not be like this. War has moved on since the Aughties Iraq War. Drones do more killing than people do. I think that will lead to less empathy than even The Surge's men learn to experience. Now you'll simply see the aftermath of killing not commit or participate in it as a group.
I have the luxury of knowing I'll be dead before all that long, so might...probably will...miss most of it. Poor Author Kovac, having lived it, written about it, and now seen it coming again on home soil, just has to gut it out. I'm sorry, my dude. If it's any consolation to you, this story is excellent, and you're a dab hand at bringing your readers along with you as you make a narrative happen for us.
If you're in the modern world and wondering why the right-wing-nuts are whining about men being "too empathetic," read Adam Kovac's novel. Empathy is what war pounds into your skull. If you start out with it, with what it takes to learn it out in the killing fields, maybe...just maybe...you won't do it on command.
That makes this very good story a public mitzvah as well as a pleasure to read.
The Publisher Says: Larry Chandler knows what his fellow soldiers don’t—that war scars you and haunts you, leaving you with memories you’d prefer not to face. They’re all National Guardsmen serving together in Iraq, but he’s already done a stint in Afghanistan, whereas they’re fresh-faced youngsters on their first tour. The new soldiers are eager for something more interesting than life on a firebase, or boring guard duty at isolated outposts—and they’re about to get their wish.
Adam Kovac has written one of the great novels of The Forever Wars—one that captures both the dust and grit and sweat of soldiers on patrol, and the surrealism of their lives back on base. (Where they might be checking Facebook and ordering lattes one minute, and dodging mortars the next.) In its first edition, it earned comparisons to the likes of Hemingway, Mailer, and O’Brien; this revised second edition promises to find it the audience it so richly deserves.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm connected with Author Kovac across social platforms for ages now, because we support and repost stuff that falls into a leftier, less manosphere-friendly vibe. I got a copy of the DRC from his publisher without mentioning it to him, when one fine day he slid into my DMs asking if I wanted to read it.
Thus proving the old adage "you know your own."
Another old adage proved in this read is "be careful what you ask the gods for lest their answer be 'yes.'" Larry Chandler muses at one point that he doesn't know what to do with the genuine, but not civilian-life-friendly, love he feels for fallen comrades. It's real, this unnamed grief, but it's so very not part of the life your friends, family, spouse at home are leading that you can't see what you can do with it.
For me, that was the emotional heart of this read. In The Yellow Birds , Bartle has a job of work to explain how he survived and another man didn't. In Matterhorn , one of my annual 6*-of-five reads, Waino Mellas had the same gigantic realization in Vietnam. If you're sensing a theme, you're on my signal pretty tightly.
Why I read these war-experience novels by veterans is easy to explain. They are always real and honest; they carry some burden the veteran wants to put down; and they are almost always so polished in the author's writerly imagination that some genuinely lovely turn of phrase leaps out at me:
"People, man, they won’t shut up. Watch. They’ll keep asking what you’re going to do now that you’re back home. Compared to life downrange, I think it might be impossible to find anything as interesting."
–and–
"Civilian world. It’s a dead end. Man knows where he stands here. Where he belongs."
Terse, not flowery, not fancy, but impactful like the sound of an IED just out of sight is.
Why I like reading these stories is also easy to explain. I will never have an experience like this. Even if, as I suspect is the case, this inner conflict ripping up the US does not end without bloodshed, it will not be like this. War has moved on since the Aughties Iraq War. Drones do more killing than people do. I think that will lead to less empathy than even The Surge's men learn to experience. Now you'll simply see the aftermath of killing not commit or participate in it as a group.
I have the luxury of knowing I'll be dead before all that long, so might...probably will...miss most of it. Poor Author Kovac, having lived it, written about it, and now seen it coming again on home soil, just has to gut it out. I'm sorry, my dude. If it's any consolation to you, this story is excellent, and you're a dab hand at bringing your readers along with you as you make a narrative happen for us.
If you're in the modern world and wondering why the right-wing-nuts are whining about men being "too empathetic," read Adam Kovac's novel. Empathy is what war pounds into your skull. If you start out with it, with what it takes to learn it out in the killing fields, maybe...just maybe...you won't do it on command.
That makes this very good story a public mitzvah as well as a pleasure to read.
July 29, 2024
This was tragic and haunting but also paradoxically kind of low key with odd moments of humor or kindness. It reminded me of Audie Murphy's book To Hell and Back. Moving and understandable in that the people in the middle of a war so depressing and horrifying are mostly looking out for each other and trying to survive to go home. I remember the guys that I knew who were in Vietnam talking a very similar way and having that edge of madness after being there a while. Something you just want no one to have to go through. This was fiction of course but seemingly awfully close to the truth. Very well done.
June 3, 2025
The best novel about the Iraq War, or any war for that matter, that you've probably never read. My opinion, of course, is somewhat biased.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews