thedrifter
06-29-07, 09:35 AM
Gossip From The Front Lines
Books
By LIZZIE WIDDICOMBE
June 29, 2007
Before she was carted off to prison, Paris Hilton expressed her wish, through her publicist, that the press "focus on more important things, like the men and women serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan." In "Last One In" (Harper Perennial, 261 pages, $13.95), Nicholas Kulish's first novel, a string of bad luck — including a libel suit and an injured war correspondent — forces a gossip reporter named Jimmy Stephens to fulfill Ms. Hilton's dream: He learns, with a day's notice, that he's being shipped out to cover the Iraq invasion.
Jimmy's unlikely assignment gives Mr. Kulish, who was embedded with the Marines for the Wall Street Journal, a chance to describe the early days of the war from the perspective of an outsider — though one who doesn't mind delivering the occasional zinger. "You need a fun angle on that or something?" Jimmy asks his editor before he leaves. "What to wear in the desert, maybe?"
An appendix cites "Catch-22" and "Scoop" as Mr. Kulish's inspirations, but, as far as satire goes, the book is more successful at having internalized the strange way the war has appeared, in the press, side by side with cheeky coverage of celebrities. Mr. Kulish mines the comparison: Army flaks are contrasted with movie star publicists; a thick-set Marine is described as "a born nightclub bouncer." The jokes don't always hit their mark, but when they do, "Last One In" is original and illuminating.
Jimmy's journey begins in a base in Kuwait and moves to a military convoy, where, embedded with a Marine unit, he embarks on the long, slow slog to Baghdad. He doesn't have much of an ear for hard news, and at times the book becomes a desert novel of manners, as Jimmy meets and evaluates people at each rung of the social order: scruffy war correspondents, magazine wonks, and a prima donna TV journalist; and on the military side, Marine grunts, press handlers, and officers. Except for one encounter midway through the book, Iraqis stay in the distance.
If there's little talk, for a reporter's story, of things that normally appear in the news, it's because Mr. Kulish finds his best material in what's happening at the margins: Soldiers chug Listerine (alcohol is illegal in Kuwait) and stage scorpion fights; the TV reporter makes an effort to look tousled before stepping in front of the camera; an enterprising Marine uses Jimmy's laptop to sell war memorabilia on eBay. Mr. Kulish catches the different kinds of speech: the grating profanity of the Marines ("I'd kill fifty Iraqis for some KFC, man"); the semantics of the reporters ("I think it might be time to drop the q-word," says one, meaning "quagmire"); and — best and darkest — the eerie doublespeak of the military PR machine. "So we're the pro-Iraqi forces, and the anti-Iraqi forces are the Iraqis," Jimmy asks a press officer, repeating a sound bite. "Exactly," the officer says. In another lecture, as the group is readying to leave Kuwait, an army spokesman refuses to admit where they're headed. "You could be going anywhere," he says. "Jimmy recognized the strange vacancy of official lying," Mr. Kulish adds. He has a tendency to spell things out in Jimmy's inner commentary.
There are drawbacks to having Jimmy as a guide. His smart-aleck remarks can sound mechanical. "Okay, I get it," he says to his Humvee driver during a sandstorm, "Driving blind is the very height of sanity." It might have worked for Yossarian, but this smirkiness, combined with Jimmy's clownish mistakes — getting stuck in the back of a food truck, making an accidental phone call to CNN — grow irritating.
Jimmy is not an enlisted man — he could leave if things really got bad — and especially in the middle of the book, Mr. Kulish relies on his antics to keep things interesting. "Hold me," Jimmy says, while flirting with a female photographer who is helping him pack. "I don't have time for your jokes," she tells him. "I'm not kidding," Jimmy shoots back — but you kind of wish he'd listen.
The barbs don't stop as the Marines approach Baghdad, but they become grimmer, and the story finds a deeper register. Mr. Kulish's descriptions of the Marines exploring Saddam Hussein's vacant palace, and of the anti-climactic arrival of the Americans into the decimated city, is surreal and affecting. Tragedy is abrupt and isolated when it strikes, anticipating the way the war will unravel. A few meditative lines are hard to process — "all rubble belonged to all children in a way" — but others are memorable. "Jimmy thought they needed a new name for whatever it was they were doing in Iraq," Mr. Kulish writes. "War just didn't cover it."
Ms. Widdicombe is a member of the editorial staff of the New Yorker.
Ellie
Books
By LIZZIE WIDDICOMBE
June 29, 2007
Before she was carted off to prison, Paris Hilton expressed her wish, through her publicist, that the press "focus on more important things, like the men and women serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan." In "Last One In" (Harper Perennial, 261 pages, $13.95), Nicholas Kulish's first novel, a string of bad luck — including a libel suit and an injured war correspondent — forces a gossip reporter named Jimmy Stephens to fulfill Ms. Hilton's dream: He learns, with a day's notice, that he's being shipped out to cover the Iraq invasion.
Jimmy's unlikely assignment gives Mr. Kulish, who was embedded with the Marines for the Wall Street Journal, a chance to describe the early days of the war from the perspective of an outsider — though one who doesn't mind delivering the occasional zinger. "You need a fun angle on that or something?" Jimmy asks his editor before he leaves. "What to wear in the desert, maybe?"
An appendix cites "Catch-22" and "Scoop" as Mr. Kulish's inspirations, but, as far as satire goes, the book is more successful at having internalized the strange way the war has appeared, in the press, side by side with cheeky coverage of celebrities. Mr. Kulish mines the comparison: Army flaks are contrasted with movie star publicists; a thick-set Marine is described as "a born nightclub bouncer." The jokes don't always hit their mark, but when they do, "Last One In" is original and illuminating.
Jimmy's journey begins in a base in Kuwait and moves to a military convoy, where, embedded with a Marine unit, he embarks on the long, slow slog to Baghdad. He doesn't have much of an ear for hard news, and at times the book becomes a desert novel of manners, as Jimmy meets and evaluates people at each rung of the social order: scruffy war correspondents, magazine wonks, and a prima donna TV journalist; and on the military side, Marine grunts, press handlers, and officers. Except for one encounter midway through the book, Iraqis stay in the distance.
If there's little talk, for a reporter's story, of things that normally appear in the news, it's because Mr. Kulish finds his best material in what's happening at the margins: Soldiers chug Listerine (alcohol is illegal in Kuwait) and stage scorpion fights; the TV reporter makes an effort to look tousled before stepping in front of the camera; an enterprising Marine uses Jimmy's laptop to sell war memorabilia on eBay. Mr. Kulish catches the different kinds of speech: the grating profanity of the Marines ("I'd kill fifty Iraqis for some KFC, man"); the semantics of the reporters ("I think it might be time to drop the q-word," says one, meaning "quagmire"); and — best and darkest — the eerie doublespeak of the military PR machine. "So we're the pro-Iraqi forces, and the anti-Iraqi forces are the Iraqis," Jimmy asks a press officer, repeating a sound bite. "Exactly," the officer says. In another lecture, as the group is readying to leave Kuwait, an army spokesman refuses to admit where they're headed. "You could be going anywhere," he says. "Jimmy recognized the strange vacancy of official lying," Mr. Kulish adds. He has a tendency to spell things out in Jimmy's inner commentary.
There are drawbacks to having Jimmy as a guide. His smart-aleck remarks can sound mechanical. "Okay, I get it," he says to his Humvee driver during a sandstorm, "Driving blind is the very height of sanity." It might have worked for Yossarian, but this smirkiness, combined with Jimmy's clownish mistakes — getting stuck in the back of a food truck, making an accidental phone call to CNN — grow irritating.
Jimmy is not an enlisted man — he could leave if things really got bad — and especially in the middle of the book, Mr. Kulish relies on his antics to keep things interesting. "Hold me," Jimmy says, while flirting with a female photographer who is helping him pack. "I don't have time for your jokes," she tells him. "I'm not kidding," Jimmy shoots back — but you kind of wish he'd listen.
The barbs don't stop as the Marines approach Baghdad, but they become grimmer, and the story finds a deeper register. Mr. Kulish's descriptions of the Marines exploring Saddam Hussein's vacant palace, and of the anti-climactic arrival of the Americans into the decimated city, is surreal and affecting. Tragedy is abrupt and isolated when it strikes, anticipating the way the war will unravel. A few meditative lines are hard to process — "all rubble belonged to all children in a way" — but others are memorable. "Jimmy thought they needed a new name for whatever it was they were doing in Iraq," Mr. Kulish writes. "War just didn't cover it."
Ms. Widdicombe is a member of the editorial staff of the New Yorker.
Ellie