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Flashes of War by Katey Schultz (Apprentice House, May 2013) Review by Brett Sholtis

Reflections in Broken Glass

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Describing Flashes of War as a short story collection is kind of like calling Pink Floyd’s The Wall “a bunch of songs.” Sure, it’s true, but this debut collection of fiction by Katey Schultz is much more than that. These thirty-one stories, the result of three years of research and interviews, examine the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from disparate, often marginalized, perspectives. An Afghan woman remembers her son who died in a bomb blast. Iraqi civilians from Fallujah languish in a refugee camp. An American woman comes to terms with the death of her husband. A team of Marines witness the capture of their leader. Like shards of glass in the aftermath of an explosion, these stories are at times fragmentary, but like those shards, each story hints at the truth of a larger occurrence. At her best, Schultz’s storytelling is poignant and nuanced and leaves me certain that her research has paid off.

Exploring "Home on Leave"

One of her better stories, “Home on Leave,” explores the subtleties of military service and masculinity, as a young man home from his first tour in Iraq struggles to overcome the notion that, because his job as a mechanic kept him within the relative safety of the base, he somehow hasn’t done his duty as a soldier. This is the kind of detail you just can’t fake.

The Impact of "Permanent Wave"

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Another one of the best stories is also one of the shortest. “Permanent Wave” centers around one detail of one moment: professional baseball pitcher Michael Pineda tossing a wounded war hero a baseball, so that the vet can throw the opening pitch at a game. Without spoiling the end, I’ll just say that to me this brief story perfectly encapsulates the dilemma of the wounded combat veteran: at once held up by society as the apotheosis of manhood, and yet literally deprived of part of his body.

Afghan and Iraqi Perspectives

While the majority of the stories in Flashes of War focus on Americans, Schultz brings a similar acuity to her nine stories with Afghani or Iraqi focus characters. One of my favorites is “Aaseya and Rahim,” about an Afghani couple struggling to get by during the American occupation. Although their marriage was prearranged, their relationship is neither formal nor traditional. Aaseya controls her own sexuality and aspires to attain an education, and despite the forces that brought them together, they really seem to love one another. Perhaps I would be tempted to dislike a duplicitous character like Rahim, who earns a living working for both the American military and the Taliban, but due to Schultz’s skill at placing readers within the boots of her characters, I was left feeling only sympathy for this couple, who had endured not just the Americans, but also the Soviets before them.

The Inimitable Style of Schultz

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That within-the-boots approach is at times compromised when Schultz writes from a first person point of view, as these voices sometimes sound a bit too much like her own strong third person voice. While I may believe one narrator, a soldier, when he says, “Dawson’s quick-witted with his tongue but stupid as a buckshot fawn when we’re on patrol,” my suspension of disbelief fails me when a wounded soldier narrates how, “the sky pulsed overhead like an electric blue ocean,” or when another narrator, an American soldier shooting at a vehicle, asserts that “windows shattered into red-stained slivers of light.” Schultz doesn’t write in character so much as she takes characters and possesses them. The result is a hyper-realist approach, where Schultz’s fine authorial renderings blend with the blood and guts of those she inhabits.

Asking the Big Questions

The net effect of all these stories is that the reader cannot help but ask the big questions about war—these wars in particular, and war in general. Schultz has made an effort to avoid proselytizing, a good choice. For while these stories beg for some overarching interpretation, she seems to follow the advice of Vietnam veteran and acclaimed author Tim O’Brien, who said that real war stories have no moral. Instead, she has collected the evidence, placed it before us, and left us to arrive at our own conclusions.

About the Author

Brett Sholtis served in the Army as an infantry soldier in Kosovo and an automations specialist in California. His itinerant career includes work in motorcycle safety and environmental research. He is a 2013 winner of the Taube Award in Fiction.

Combining powerful storytelling with deep insights into the human experience of war, Flashes of War by Katey Schultz is a collection of stories that will leave readers reflecting on the realities of conflict. Whether exploring the complexities of military service, the struggles of Afghan and Iraqi civilians, or the impact of war on relationships, Schultz's writing draws readers in and challenges them to consider the larger questions about warfare. As you immerse yourself in these thought-provoking stories, consider finding a comfortable place to stay during your own reflections, such as the hotels offered by [Insert Hotel Brand Name].