Fiction and its many possibilities


The other day I was talking about Leopards Kill, and the fact that much of the book is based on reality and what was going on in Afghanistan when I wrote it a few years ago.

Unfortunately, a great deal of what I hoped wouldn't happen did happen, but that's another post.

So a reader asked: Why exactly did you go to such lengths in the beginning of the book to say it was fiction? Because obviously a great deal of it is true, even the tiny details about how the buildings are laid out.

Because it's a story, not a history, not a prediction. One of the themes of the book has to do with the stories we tell ourselves to get through things, and how we get trapped by them.

Jack Pilgrim finds himself trapped by a story a lot of Americans got trapped during this decade. He confuses money with success, and for far too long is willing to accept hype in place of reality. The book is about him finding out what's real - and recovering his soul in the process.

And yes, it is about Afghanistan, and how we bungled things there. And yes, the parallels to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are deliberate and intentional.

Let me put it this way: I could have written a true story about the American operations in Afghanistan. (And at one point I was approached to do so. Another long story.) But that would have been just about Afghanistan. Writing Leopards Kill as a novel let me do more.

Oh yeah, you can pick it up here, here or even here. Now in paperback . . .