My Life as a Foreign Country
"This is the part of what I was learning, from early childhood on - that to journey into the wild spaces where profound questions are given a violent and inexorable response, that to travail through fire and return again - these are the experiences which determine the making of a man.
To be a man, I would need to walk into the thunder and hail of a world stripped of its reason, just as others in my family had done before me.
And, if I were strong enough, and capable enough, and god-damned lucky enough, I might one day return clothed in an unshakeable silence. Back to the world, as they say."
Brian Turner, My Life as a Foreign Country
A deliberate, almost delirious book - part poetry, part reflection, part historical fallback, part ruminated musing, part telling - of the experience of growing up and becoming in a culture that validates war and the war experience, but struggles to surround those humans sent to war, with the support they need to come back.
Powerful and challenging, a text to somberly savour.
