A powerful debut novel about four young soldiers serving in Afghanistan, and the devastating aftermath of war. "An unvarnished, intimately informed dissection of war's physical and emotional derangements." – Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise and American War
Sixteen-year-old Plinko is attending basic training before high school starts up again in the fall. Feeling adrift from his own family, he moves in with an older soldier, where he forges an unlikely group of friends in the military: the very tall Walsh, who moves in shortly after Plinko does; Abdi, whose Somali immigrant parents often welcome the group of young men over for dinner; and the unpredictable and gun-loving Krug, who is brash and exasperating yet magnetic.
After 9/11, the military prepares to move into Afghanistan — to go to war. Plinko and his friends have no idea that the trajectory of their lives is about to be irrevocably altered.
Drawn from the author's experiences as a soldier in Afghanistan, Juiceboxers tenderly traces the story of a young man's journey from basic training, to the battlefields of Kandahar, to the inner city of Edmonton, braiding together questions of masculinity and militarism, friendship and white supremacy, loss and trauma and hard-won recovery.
Authors
- Pages
- 354
- Published in
- Calgary, CA
- Rights
- Benjamin Hertwig
Table of Contents
- Front Cover 1
- Back Cover 2
- Front Flap 3
- Back Flap 4
- Praise 5
- Half-Title 7
- Title 9
- Copyright 10
- Dedication 11
- Epigraph 13
- Prologue 15
- Part One: July 1999 19
- Chapter One 21
- Chapter Two 30
- Chapter Three 39
- Chapter Four 52
- Chapter Five 58
- Part Two: July 2006 69
- Chapter Six 71
- Chapter Seven 78
- Chapter Eight 90
- Chapter Nine 101
- Chapter Ten 109
- Chapter Eleven 115
- Chapter Twelve 125
- Part Three: January 2007 135
- Chapter Thirteen 137
- Chapter Fourteen 144
- Chapter Fifteen 158
- Chapter Sixteen 172
- Chapter Seventeen 185
- Chapter Eighteen 201
- Chapter Nineteen 212
- Chapter Twenty 227
- Chapter Twenty-One 233
- Chapter Twenty-Two 244
- Chapter Twenty-Three 255
- Chapter Twenty-Four 261
- Chapter Twenty-Five 273
- Part Four: January 2015 281
- Chapter Twenty-Six 283
- Chapter Twenty-Seven 289
- Chapter Twenty-Eight 297
- Chapter Twenty-Nine 301
- Chapter Thirty 312
- Chapter Thirty-One 322
- Chapter Thirty-Two 329
- Chapter Thirty-Three 339
- Acknowledgements 355
