Dispatches by Michael Herr (Patron-Only | Early Access)

Dispatches was absolutely phenomenal! I finished this evening and it is my biggest surprise hit of the year. Pound for pound this book is darn near peerless. It's dense, sometimes difficult with its lingo, but the psychological reporting and the emotional subtlety that he engages! He hits registers that you almost don't know are there until he touches them. Wow. It reminds you of what books can do at their best. The kind of mind who, when he's doing drugs, makes you want to do drugs just to try to get into his frequency... Lastly, I think it's fitting (and legendary) that this book is pretty much his only output. "I went to cover the war, and the war covered me. An old story unless you've never heard it before." He became a man with only one song. One fucking beaut of a song.

Just bought Dispatches based on the recc, thanks :)

Great review, dude. I am definitely going to get this one. Part of me wonders if it’s all war that has that dark allure or just Vietnam - which had a lot going for it with the weather, groovy music, the drugs flowing around. World War One, for example, sounds like it was nothing but a 24/7 horror show.

Excellent review of an excellent book. You’ve launched me towards an immediate reread. Rob Cash

Looks like I'm dusting off my copy of Dispatches for a re-read.

Oh this was excellent. I am definitely going to read this now. Also totally random but the book’s French title reminded me of a fun fact about the French military: they had their own “putains de guerre” aka Mobile Military Brothels as late as 2003. The last one in Metropolitan France closed in French Guyana in 1995 “after a complaint by a Brazilian pimp for unfair competition”. Vive la France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordel_militaire_de_campagne