There are pieces of me in every character of Youngblood, from the Machiavellian Sergeant Chambers to the Iraqi mother Rana. That said, of course there are pieces of me in Jack. I’d be worried if Jack was my friend or son because of this, but he makes for a heck of a narrator, I think! He’s very slow to burn, but things stick with them, and he chews them over and over again, sometimes to his detriment. Over the course of developing Jack, I realized he’d be much more conflicted than I am about Iraq and the war, for better or worse. Early on in the drafts of Youngblood, I decided I wanted to utilize a first-person narrative to get at a deeper emotional texture for this story, but I also knew that my narrator needed to be engaging than I am, more interesting, too. I’d already written a book from the perspective of Matt Gallagher (my memoir Kaboom) so I’d been freed from that first-time author-as-narrator impulse. How much of Youngblood is influenced from or inspired by your own experiences? What other sources inspired the work? You were a Scout platoon leader, a captain, and a targeting officer for the US Army during the Iraq War. Youngblood is about a young lieutenant deployed in Iraq, leading his platoon and navigating the complications within the Army as well. What does that mean, in terms of how wars are carried out and how it looks to those in foreign countries living in the midst of it? How does it impact and affect American society at large? How does it impact and affect soldiers and citizens individually? These are important questions that deserve the literary treatment, and thankfully are now starting to get it.Ģ.
I want to be the best Matt Gallagher I can be as a writer, just as I want my work to be its absolute best when it reaches readers.Īs for what characterizes this generation of war literature - the American military is made up of an all-volunteer force now. As much as I respect the work of the Hemingways and the Cranes, as much as their work has mattered to me as a reader and as a thinker, I’m not interested in being the next whomever. But I think the writers of my generation are still just focusing on one book, one story at a time, at least I know I am. Those writers were an inspiration, certainly. Those names made an entire career of writing deep, incisive creative work, work that still matters and resonates all these years later. Well, it’s very nice to be placed in such esteemed company. What do you think of that comparison? What do you think characterizes this generation of war literature? The New York Daily News has named you among writers like Elliot Ackerman, Maurice Decaul, Phil Klay, Kevin Powers and Brandon Willitts as heralding a new generation of American war literature, much like Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane, Joseph Heller or Graham Greene did during past military conflicts.
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