Shooting Ghosts

Starred review from May 29, 2017
In this well-written account of dealing with war trauma, a still-taboo subject for many in the military, Brennan and O’Reilly, a retired Marine Corps sergeant and a battle-hardened photojournalist, respectively, confront the manner in which they were consumed by the hell of warfare and saved by the power of words and pictures. In Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Brennan methodically goes about his work, killing Taliban insurgents and children who get in the way. O’Reilly was driven in his own way in covering African wars and civil strife in Congo, Libya, and elsewhere. While embedded in Brennan’s squad, O’Reilly photographs the wounds the sergeant suffers after an explosion. Their lives now linked, when the shooting stops and the blasts end for them, neither man can survive his respective trauma without treatment. O’Reilly seeks help and receives it without much ado. But Brennan must navigate the Corps’s byzantine bureaucracy and the perverse machismo of fellow soldiers and commanders who disparage post-traumatic stress disorder as a weakness. Brennan and O’Reilly strip away any misplaced notions of glamour, bravery, and stoicism to craft an affecting memoir of a deep friendship—one that nourishes their will to survive the memories of horrors that most noncombatants will never fully understand. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky, Stuart Krichevsky Literary.

June 15, 2017
The story of the friendship between an embedded photographer in Afghanistan and a Marine who was wounded in an ambush explosion in 2010.In this poignant memoir penned in alternating points of view by two very different participants in America's war in Afghanistan, the authors achieve a shared sense of emotional and physical trauma. O'Reilly, a photojournalist who has spent more than a decade in the most dangerous hot spots on the planet, from Africa to Helmand Province, and Brennan, a Marine squad leader on deployment in Afghanistan, met during that horrific Taliban attack in 2010. O'Reilly took pictures of a wounded Brennan and put them on a web link, to the alarm of his parents, who did not know what was going on. Ultimately, the two "misfits" would meet again in America over their shared suffering from long-running PTSD. After his many deployments and injuries, Brennan suffered from serious concussions, although he preferred to lie about the symptoms rather than reveal the extent of his injuries; O'Reilly, stationed in war zones in Africa and elsewhere, was in denial about his emotional instability. Both men ultimately sought professional help, though for Brennan, it was particularly arduous and painful; even asking for help as a Marine branded him as a "pussy" and lowered his stature with his squad. Nonetheless, the plethora of suicides among his acquaintances and his own bewilderment propelled him to change his career to being a journalist chronicling veterans' concerns. O'Reilly, on the other hand, had to fight feelings of being "predatory and repulsive" in shooting and publishing scenes of violence. Ultimately, the authors effectively reveal how they moved beyond the "fog of war" and forged a new life after the trauma. A courageous breaking of the code of silence to seek mental health for veterans and the war-scarred.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 2, 2017
This audiobook employs the voices of two voice actors—Chamberlain and Lawrence—to stand in for the authors, who describe the hell they encountered in Afghanistan and their friendship that resulted. Brennan and O’Reilly, a retired Marine Corps sergeant and a photojournalist, respectively, were thrown together when O’Reilly was assigned to cover Brennan’s squad in a remote outpost in Afghanistan. For O’Reilly, the assignment is simply another job; for Brennan, it means another person to worry about. But when Brennan is injured by a bomb, it starts a chain of events that has a profound effect on both men’s lives. Actor Chamberlain presents Brennan’s narrative with a simple, straightforward delivery that allows the author’s words to carry the emotional weight of the prose. Actor Lawrence embellishes Brennan’s parts of the narrative with a tough-sounding Massachusetts accent that is more distracting than anything else. He also attempts different voices for various people in Brennan’s life. The vast differences between the narrators’ styles creates an imbalance that distracts from the content of the book. A Viking hardcover.

June 15, 2017

Marine veteran Brennan and war photographer O'Reilly offer fresh insight into the mental devastation they endured throughout their careers on the battlefield. Brennan witnessed overwhelming combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while O'Reilly spent his days capturing images of both life and loss. The authors narrate in alternating chapters, describing events such as their first awkward meeting in an outpost in Afghanistan to their postwar years, as they struggled to make sense of their experiences. Brennan's writing is visceral and honest; he shares personal experiences of battle, and back at home, falling apart in front of his wife and young daughter. O'Reilly, meanwhile, lived in Africa for ten years and saw the aftermath of several major conflicts on that continent. After Brennan suffers a life-altering injury, O'Reilly begins to have dark thoughts about his place in the world. The book concludes with each man's attempts to find new purpose and to learn how to live with old memories. VERDICT A fresh take on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from two unique viewpoints. Highly recommended for a wide audience. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17; author Q&A, p. 97.]--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

Injured during a Taliban ambush, marine sergeant Brennan returned home and began anguishing over what he had and hadn't done. Meanwhile, photographer O'Reilly suffered survival guilt and worried about the people he had photographed at their neediest moments without intervening. Through friendship, they overcame these emotional burdens.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.