IMAGINING IRAQ

A collection of short stories explores the experiences of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mothers fearing for their safety, and veterans struggling at home.

Mujica’s son, Mauro, served in Iraq in the military, an adventure that she experienced as an emotional ordeal. Even after he safely returned, she continued to obsessively imagine what it was like to serve in combat conditions abroad. She was desirous for war stories since her son persistently avoided discussing his own. She eventually got deeply involved in providing help for veterans facing challenges, a labor of love that became a fount of inspiration for these 18 tales. At the thematic heart of this assemblage is the fearful concern of a mother confronted by the inscrutability of her son’s service. In one tale, a mother greedily consumes the anecdotes of a soldier, an antidote to her own son’s reticence: “I didn’t want him to stop talking. My own son had never told me anything at all about the war, and I was ravenous for information.” Mujica also adopts the perspectives of the soldiers as well as delivering a female viewpoint. In one story, former Army medic Sandra Winifred O’Reilly is humiliated by a dogmatically pacifist professor in medical school. The stories evince a gritty verisimilitude, which is unsurprising since the author explains that they are “all based on actual events, but they are also products of my own obsessive imaginings.” But Mujica is sometimes too conspicuous in her efforts to achieve emotional poignancy. She can create a didactically artificial timbre, as if she’s presenting readers a moral lesson of some kind. In addition, some of the moments seem melodramatic. For example, consider this military interrogator’s first impression of an Iraqi woman he questions: “It was because Calla was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even more beautiful than his wife. He didn’t want her to be married. He didn’t want her to belong to someone else.” Still, these stories are generally authentic and affecting.

A bracing literary investigation of war and its emotional ramifications.