num_pages: 176
description: Everybody’s Gulf War Syndrome is a little bit different. Or so believes Larry, who returns home from Desert Storm to find his hair gone and his bones rapidly disintegrating. Then there’s Lance Corporal James Laverne of the US Marines, who grows a third ear in Kuwait. And in the audaciously comic novella “Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8,” a Green Beret deserts his team after seeing a vision of George Washington, only to find a new calling—administering aid to wounded Iraqi civilians; he’s hindered only by the furtive nature of his mission and an unruly band of chimpanzees. Together these narratives form a bracing amalgamation of devastating humor and brilliant cultural observation, in which Gabe Hudson fearlessly explores the darker implications of American military power.
language: English
title: Dear Mr. President
titlecomplete: Dear Mr. President
genres: Fiction, Short Stories, War
ratings_count: 201
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
publisher: Vintage