Stories of the Forever War

Harvard Book Store welcomes local writers and veterans MAURICE DECAUL, TERESA FAZIO, COLIN D. HALLORAN, and LAUREN HALLORAN for a discussion of The Road Ahead: Stories of the Forever War, a short story collection that explores the aftereffects of the Iraq and Afghan Wars. Bestselling author BRIAN CASTNER, co-editor of The Road Ahead, will introduce and moderate the discussion.

About The Road Ahead

A decade has passed since boots first hit the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the war has not ended—only changed.  Twenty-five diverse veteran voices reflect the changing face of combat and reflect the haunting realities and truths only fiction can reveal.

These masterfully crafted stories from writers who have served reflect the entire breadth of human emotion—loss, anger, joy, love, fear, and courage—and the evolving nature of what has become America’s "Forever War."

From debut writers to experienced contributors whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, this exceptional collection promises to be the definitive fictional look at the aftereffects of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, and will resonate with the reader long after the final page.

Including stories by: Elliot Ackerman, Benjamin Busch, Brandon Caro, Maurice Decaul, Teresa Fazio, Thomas Gibbons Neff, Aaron Gwyn, Alex Horton, Matt Robinson, Kristen L. Rouse, Chris Wolfe, Kayla M. Williams, Brandon Willitts, and many others. 

Praise

"The writers gathered in these pages are among the finest, and the material they are working with is, by its nature, powerful and compelling. The result is stories that are by turns brutal and hilarious, dark and redemptive. Every one of them speaks to a truth we should not, cannot, turn away from." —Mary Roach, the New York Times–bestselling author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

"The Road Ahead more than lived up to its promise—a shockingly brilliant salvo in the next wave of literature about our perpetual wars, a diverse and strange new literature which is utterly essential if we want to understand who we are as a nation, and what this era of constant war is doing to us, to our military, and to the countries where we send our men and women to kill and die." —Phil Klay, the National Book Award–winning author of Redeployment

"A stunning, poignant, astonishing, mournful, melancholy, brutally honest collection of stories about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and makes this old soldier’s heart sore. They are so well written. If you want to understand our young soldiers and the world they lived in, read these stories." —Larry Heinemann, the National Book Award–winning author of Paco's Story and Black Virgin Mountain