Michael Pitre - FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES

FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES is one of the great novels of war, the kind of book that comes along only once or twice each generation. It pulls of that rare literary feat of being at once expansive and personal. Michael Pitre, a two-tour Marine veteran of the Iraq conflict, is not just the real deal, he's a literary force in the making." -Joseph Boyden

Please join us for a reading and signing celebrating the launch of New Orleans writer Michael Pitre's  FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES, a truly stunning work of art, and a debut novel that Kirkus called “a book in which everything rings so unshakably true. A war novel with a voice all its own, this will stand as one of the definitive renderings of the Iraq experience.”

A heart-stopping debut novel about war and its aftermath by an Iraq War veteran—and an essential examination of the United States’ role in the world.

It’s the rule—always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead.

Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine’s life in the road repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger.

Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there’s Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture—from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries—is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country.

Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them. A debut both transcendent and rooted in the flesh, FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES is a deeply necessary novel.

 

Michael Pitre

Michael Pitre is a graduate of Louisiana State University, where he was a double major in history and creative writing. In 2002, he joined the Marines Corps, deploying twice to Iraq and attaining the rank of captain before leaving the service in 2010 to get his M.B.A. at Loyola. He lives in New Orleans.

 

 

 

 

Event date: 

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 6:00pm

Event address: 

513 Octavia St
70115-2055 New Orleans
us
Fives and Twenty-Fives: A Novel By Michael Pitre Cover Image
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ISBN: 9781620407547
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Bloomsbury USA - August 26th, 2014

It's the rule-always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters.


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