Book Review: What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and the Forgotten, by J. Malcolm Garcia

Abstract

J. Malcolm Garcia What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and Forgotten. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2014. 310 pp.News of war is mostly about soldiers-the official warriors who plunge into battle, fighting for what their country, their sect, their beliefs see as right and just. For most part, these stories come devoid of context related to battlegrounds. Yet once war is gone, a mass of rubble remains: citizens, infrastructures, daily lives all lost in a dark blur.What Wars Leave Behind is about that dark blur. Through 15 chapters divided into three parts-Conflict Zones, Lost and Gone, Home Bound-freelance journalist J. Malcolm Garcia provides powerful imagery of gritty hopelessness that shrouds all that is left behind. Through vivid snippets of conversations with locals and an insider's view of daily life in former war zones, he paints a montage of words akin to images created by an impressionist painter. The sum of words adds up to much more than words alone. Rarely does his assault of lived experience hold still for long, as Garcia moves from one bleak scenario to next.Clearly, Garcia's book is advocacy journalism, but it is not political advocacy. Instead, through his portraits and landscapes, Garcia demonstrates why human remnants of war beg for a saner, safer world. Much of narrative drives forward without theme sentences or specific arguments. This writing technique demands that reader draw a broader understanding by meditating on details until a larger message appears.Garcia became a journalist through an unconventional route-until age of 40, he carved out his career as a social worker. Then, in 1997, he began his journalism career as a beat reporter for The Kansas City Star, turning into what he calls the wandering scribe, four years later during his first overseas assignment in Afghanistan at dawn of post-9/11 era. That experience resulted in his first non-fiction narrative book, The Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul. As a freelance writer, Garcia has had his work appear in Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's, and Mother Jones, among others. In a telling interview with The Investigative Fund, Garcia reflects on his reporting process and his note-taking approach that make writing of What Wars Leave Behind rich and alive.1In What Wars Leave Behind, Garcia takes reader through seven war-torn nations: Afghanistan, Chad, Egypt, Kosovo, Pakistan, Syria, and Turkey. The earliest writings come from 2004, most recent from 2013. Nearly all writings have been previously published, with six chapters based in Afghanistan and three from Pakistan. Some common themes emerge across these works: desperation, acceptance, corruption, fear, and greed.After spending time with Garcia's stories in What Wars Leave Behind, a feeling of paranoia began to swell-I had an urge to look over my shoulder, wondering, Is reality what we imagine or what we experience? In Syria, where impending doom mixed with family life,We retrace our steps to where we started. …