Final State Press

The Strong Man (Final State Press)

290 pages
14.95 paperback | 2.50 ebook (PDF)

To be released in January 2010

The Strong Man is one hell of a book. Matt Briggs writes about both going to war, and coming home, and the ways in which, for some of us, war and home seem oddly merged these days, the way we make war now. This story is populated with characters who matter and whose lives will touch you. A fine piece of work from a very talented writer. — Robert Bausch, author of Out of Season and The Gypsy Man

What does Ben Wallace do when uncontrollable events happen to him?  He gets stronger.  Ben’s girlfriend is pregnant and he is called up from the reserves to go to war in this vivid, compelling, and enlightening second novel from Matt Briggs.  Ben desperately wants to fight in a war “to experience something that would transform me into something else.”  He is exploited by Sergeant Mice (in a relationship similar to Lennie and George from Of Mice and Men) because of his physical strength.  Ben lives his life according to ideas or myths, which include war, family, the desert, and what it means to be a man in America. The Strong Man wants to show us what’s behind these myths, “Like most things, when I thought too much about them, I didn’t know what they were: mango juice that was mostly apple juice, leather that was mostly plastic, and cheese that was mostly wax.” — Laurie Blauner, author of All This Could Be Yours and Infinite Kindness

About The Strong Man

An Army Reservist, Ben Wallace, is a reluctant member of the U.S. Army Reserve. Yet, when he is called to duty in Operation Desert Shield, he realizes he wants to experience what his grandfather calls, “The Enlightenment of War.” He initially joined the Army as a form of rebellion against his father—a Vietnam era draft dodger—and as a way to be closer to his is grandfather. His grandfather is a veteran of Guam. Wallace needs to experience combat, he thinks, to make himself a man.

Several things make this unlikely. Wallace is, first of all, a Laboratory Technician in a General Hospital. Second of all, every aspect of modern warfare isolates the soldiers from the discomforts and realities of the conflict. They have comfortable uniforms made from hi-tech microfibers, access to phones to call home at any time, rations designed by master chefs.

Wallace also becomes entangled in the schemes of a profiteering sergeant, Philip Mice. Mice needs Wallace, for his physical strength, to defeat a rival sergeant and to manage the enlisted men while Mice establishes a business trading in contraband. When the hospital arrives in Saudi Arabia, Mice sets up a thriving trade in homebrewed beer, used furniture, and bacon. The trade deals in comfort items designed to alleviate what little discomfort that remains among the soldiers. When Wallace and Mice and finally dispose of the rival sergeant, Wallace realizes Mice will never arrange for Wallace’s transfer to a field hospital near the front lines as long as he remains useful to him. When Wallace threatens to turn himself over to the MPs, Mice quickly transfers Wallace to a field hospital. Following the First Infantry’s advance on Basra, Wallace encounters his first surrendered Iraqis. The persistent unreality of the American Army’s war begins to slip away. When he faces the remains of retreating Iraqi soldiers destroyed on the highway to Basra, he finally experiences “The Enlightenment of War,” even though at this point he would rather remain unenlightened.

About the Author

Matt Briggs served in the Army Reserve from 1988 to 1996. His unit, a General Hospital, was activated for Operation Desert Storm/Shield in 1990, and was stationed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from January to April 1991. He is the author of five books of fiction including The Remains of River Names, Misplaced Alice, The Moss Gatherers and Shoot the Buffalo. His short fiction has appeared in The Mississippi Review, Northwest Review, The North Atlantic Review, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. A graduate of The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington he was a Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. His writing has been awarded a Seattle Arts Commission Individual Artist Award, a King County Publication Award, The Nelson Bentley Prize in Fiction, and a 2003 Genius Award from Seattle’s alternative weekly, The Stranger. Shoot the Buffalo was a finalist for the 2006 Washington State Book Award and won a 2006 American Book Award.