num_pages: 222
description: The most shocking novel ever written about the horrors of war - SATURDAY REVIEWIt is very hard to write about Johnny Got His Gun without being guilty of understatement or hysterics. It is a terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity - Washington Post Mr Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury amounting to eloquence. - New York TimesJoe, a young American soldier in the Great War, lies helpless in hospital, so horrifically injured that he cannot communicate with the outside world. Trapped in the hell of his body, he wanders back and forth through memories - his life before the war, to which he can never return, and the dark fragments of the battlefield - struggling to regain his sanity and find a foothold in a world all but lost to him. First published in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun is a brutal and terrifying tale about the realities of war.Dalton Trumbo was the most famous member of the 'Hollywood Trio', the film writers blacklisted during the McCarthy era. An academy award-winning screenwriter, his many credits include Spartacus and Papillion. He both scripted and directed the film of Johnny Got His Gun which won both the Cannes Special Award and the International Film Critics Award in 1971.
language: English
title: Johnny Got His Gun
titlecomplete: Johnny Got His Gun
characters: Joe Bonham
genres: Fiction, Historical, War, World War I, Politics, Horror, Literature, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 42384
awards: awardedAt: -978278400000
name: National Book Award
category: Most Original Book
publisher: Prion Books Limited