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Title: Prayer at Rumayla by Charles Sheehan-Miles ISBN: 1-4010-3045-9 Publisher: Xlibris Corporation Pub. Date: 01 November, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (19 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Strong, impressive debut.
Comment: Charles Sheehan-Miles, Prayer at Rumayla (Xlibris, 2001)
I had some trepidations before cracking the cover on this one; with a very few notable exceptions, I've never been much of one for war novels, which tend to either fall into the knee-jerk anti-war camp or the "sis-boom-bah rah-rah-rah" camp. Prayer at Rumayla leans towards the left side of the division, but prefers to let the images and events therein do its preaching, which already puts Sheehan-Miles ahead of 95% of the pack. Despite the book's "A novel of the Gulf War" subtitle, this is more a case of the Gulf War being a driving force for the main character's actions after he's back in the U.S. after combat.
Chet Brown, a tank loader in the Gulf War, is home after a particularly nasty engagement in Iraq. While there, he had no real goals other than to get home; now that he's back, he keeps wondering if he can go back over. His dissatisfaction with his former life and the changes in both himself and those around him lead him to spend a month's leave travelling, rather than staying in Georgia, and the three central chapters of the novel (about half the book) recount Chet's trip to New York and back.
More than anything, this is a roadtrip novel, with the usual conventions of the genre. Chet finds out about himself by meeting a series of others who reflect various parts of his personality (the obvious comparison is to On the Road here, but I found my mind drawn to various post-Vietnam novels, especially those of Lucius Shepard and J. K. Flowers rather than the land-of-Camelot stuff Kerouac was on about). However, Sheehan-Miles makes one big departure from the genre (to say what would be a plot spoiler), and that gives the book a freshness and realism that are unexpected in the modern road novel. The book is unpredictable because it plays on the predictability of its genre, and the (lack of) twist at the end is all the more powerful for not bowing to convention.
My only real problems with the book have nothing to do with the narrative itself. There are a rash of proofreading errors and more than one case where an editor should have slapped the author upside the head for sentence construction problems. Neither is overly common, however (one crops up every ten pages or so), and so the distraction value is kept to a minimum.
A promising first novel. Hopefully we'll be seeing more. *** ½
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent & Accurate
Comment: Charles Sheehan-Miles, a Gulf War combat veteran decorated for valor, scores a direct hit with his first novel, "Prayer at Rumayla."
His accurate, authentic, and unvarnished view of the shrieks, groans, horrors, and hell of combat between the U.S. and Iraq in 1991 provides a rare and illuminating glimpse into the heart of an M1A1 Abrams tank crewman.
With his laser-guided view from behind a 120mm cannon and .50 machine gun, Charles keeps faith with Gulf War combat veterans by telling it like it was, not only as a master storyteller, but with a gut-level emotional portrayal worthy of comparison with Leon Uris' "Battle Cry."
"Prayer at Rumayla" provides large caliber ammunition to the rarely heard voices of front-line Gulf War combat veterans searching for understanding in a clueless and insulated world, and the novel may provide an opportunity for some veterans to come to terms with living life after dispensing death.
As Charles' friend for more than 9 years, I know that "Prayer at Rumayla" gives readers the first-hand details left out of other books about the Gulf War -- the book is a "one of a kind."
As the U.S. prepares to send hundreds of thousands more young men and women into another war in Southwest Asia, his book is a must-read for potential recruits and government policymakers who never set foot on a modern day battlefield.
- Paul Sullivan
Cavalry Scout, 1st Armored Division
Gulf War Veteran
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent Depiction of Tank Warfare
Comment: There are a number of stengths and weaknesses in this novel. The author provides us with an incredibly vivid description of fighting inside a tank. The author (as well as the protaganist Chet Brown) was a tank loader in Gulf War I.
If you think we got the goods on everybody else, you need to read and reread this book until you catch the part about having to use WD-40 as a means to unjam the weapons from sand. The equipment seems to work only half the time. So much for technology.
I have never been inside a tank and the author gives an incredibly vivid description of how you feel the shock of firing the main gun and how the blast throws you against the hull. What a rush. You also have to go back to WWI and Wilfred Owen and Remarque to get descriptions of gas warfare. Want to know how it feels to fight wearing a gas mask with limited vision? Read this book.
Truth in Advertizing: my complaints are personal as a Vietnam veteran. It is unfortunate that crazy Viet vet has found its way into this otherwise excellent book. Why not just have the average town nut? The badass sherriff was a former member of the 7th Cav, which is a unit I served in. The protaganist's father was the battalion commander of the 7th Cav and died KIA in 1971. Don't remember that. Nope. Find another battalion commander.
This is a "returned veteran" story as well as a combat story. If you look at "Paco's Story," also reviewed by me, there is quite a difference in protaganists in similarly composed novels. Both protaganists are drifter types, but Paco is a hard and honest worker. Paco is strange, but Chet is a mess. I had a sense of hope with Paco, but knew al along Chet was headed for a dead end. I was looking for something redemptive, but was dissapointed. The underlying odd humor that combat veterans like to insert into novels, like and inside joke, seems to be missing. Maybe that is just me and maybe I missed it with my reading.
I have met the author and have to say he is very quiet and unassuming. He has talent and believe this first novel shows it.
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