Phil Klay is a former US marine who served in Iraq and studied creative writing at Dartmouth. His first book, Redeployment, a collection of stories, each in a different voice, set both in Iraq and in the US after his characters have returned home, has been published in the US to huge acclaim. "Hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad," said the New York Times. "It's the best thing written so far on what the war did to people's souls."
When did you join the US marines and why?
I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the marines in the runup to the Iraq war. I had a desire to serve my country and I'm a physical guy – a boxer and rugby player. Notions of public service are valued in my family but if we hadn't been at war, I doubt whether I would have joined the military. I was hopeful I could put myself in a position of responsibility, affect things for the better. It was an historic moment. I did not want to sit on the sidelines. I joined in 2003, became a second lieutenant in 2005.
What was your role?
I don't want to put myself forward as if I was an in-the-thick-of it guy. I was a public affairs officer. I worked with the media but I didn't just stay at my desk. I assisted in military duties, travelled around Anbar province, hung out with a wide variety of marines. I had only been in Iraq a month when I witnessed a suicide bombing in Habbaniya. The bomber blew himself up in the middle of families on their way to the mosque. I remember watching as surgery was happening on the floor because all the trauma tables were full. When you see something like that, it is very hard to process it. You can't. All you can do is your job. You think about it later.
And write about it?
Yes. I saw so many radically different versions of Iraq. It would have been difficult for me to come back and think: this is the Iraq experience.
When you were there, did you know you would write about the war?
I did not go with any clear sense I'd write about war. But Tom Sleigh – one of my tutors and a great American poet – made sure that before I went I'd read Tolstoy, Hemingway, Isaac Babel and David Jones. He thought it important to study what the greatest minds had to say about war.
You write powerfully about the difference between military and civilian life. What was it like for you returning to America from Iraq?
In Anbar province, horrific things happened. I lived near a surgical facility where they'd bring in wounded marines, civilians and insurgents. A marine injured by an insurgent and the insurgent who had injured him might come in together. What is bizarre is that, unlike in the first or second world war, you can take a plane and in a matter of hours be home. I found myself walking down Madison Avenue – beautiful, but there was this sense of estrangement. It was jarring. This was compounded after I decided to get out of the marines. I knew marines who had made the decision to go back – people serving time and time again. Here I was back in a comfortable life. I used to be part of this community where the stakes were life and death – a place where things of huge moral consequence were happening.
Your stories are full of disquiet about the way civilians respond to stories of war.
There is a lot of frustration about civilian apathy. As marines, we sign up for a job that can be very dangerous, we entrust ourselves to the US body politic in the hope they will hold leaders responsible. We fight in the trust that citizens will not keep an incompetent secretary of defence in charge. When you come back and find apathy, it is more than frustrating. Something deeply important you have been involved in is not being understood.
Are you sure it is apathy? Isn't it natural not to want to focus on war if you are lucky enough not to have to?
War is not a pleasant subject. And it is complicated – we'd like it to be simple. There is a tendency to think of vets as either badass heroes or passively traumatised, whereas it is often a complicated mix. You can be proud and feel conflicted by the sheer ugliness of what war is.
Your reviewers have pounced on a line where civilians are described as "gluttonous, fat, oversexed, overconsuming, materialist" and "too lazy" to see their faults. Did you intend to make readers self-critical?
It is important to undermine assumptions, though no one in my stories is supposed to be speaking absolute truth.
Why does it seem especially hard for war veterans to be reunited with their sexual partners?
You have been through an intense experience that has changed you; there is a readjustment when you relearn who you are. Also, there are problematic notions in the military about women and about masculinity.
You have such a feel for macho language – your writing seems charged with a violence of its own.
Sometimes macho language is to mask things people are not ready to deal with.
Has talking about war always been taboo?
In my story Psychological Operations, I quote the joke: "How many Vietnam vets does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "You wouldn't know, you weren't there." My character knows the idea behind the joke is wrong but is aware of how it functions in the culture.
If you'd known then what you know now, would you still join the marines?
I am proud of my service. I have a lot of feelings about the decisions we made as a country. But that's another story.
Was there relief in the writing?
There were things I needed to think through and writing was a rigorous way of doing it. It was a process of discarding, digging deeper. Many stories upset and angered me. I did not feel better about the last 10 years.
Will you continue to write about war?
I don't want to write about Iraq for the rest of my life. But I am living in Brooklyn now and working on a novel.
You have recently married a fellow graduate from Dartmouth, Jessica Alvarez; does she understand what you have lived through?
I have known Jessica 10 years. She's read my stories and given me helpful feedback. When you spend time in a dark place and are able to come back to someone you love, you ground yourself.
