Click here to read the story in its entirety on The New Yorker webpage. Luke Mogelson's "Peacetime" was originally published in the April 27, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.
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I don’t know much about Luke Mogelson, but I’m looking forward to the story. Please leave any comments you have below.
I liked this one – a lot.
It’s my style – realistic, episodic, conversational, revealing truth without making a parable, exposing character flaws and relatable personalities, current themes, writing that is honest and brave. And an ending that echoes.
Everything in a story is there for a reason and with this first person narrator, he has a reason to share himself with us. He unveils himself, incident by incident, moment by moment. It is a one-sided conversation, but he becomes more vulnerable as he tells his story.
And his story is spotty and incomplete at times. More information unfolds as he tells us about his interactions with the other characters.
This piece reads like a memory that has not been edited and revised to make a clean, cinematic narrative. The narrator just tells us how it is for him. It isn’t self-conscious or apologetic.
It is about a man who went to war and how coming home creates an altered definition of “Peacetime”.
I REALLY liked this one – a lot.
I agree wholeheartedly with you Adrienne.
Especially with the second paragraph of your post!
Thanks for sharing,
Greg
The ending was beautifully written.
I think this is the worst story the New Yorker has published in recent memory. I found it pointless, formless and simply substituting shock and grossness for any insight. The clichéd character–a vet combining two Paul Schrader characters (Travis Bickle and the EMT played by Nicholas Cage in Bringing Out the Dead)–has lots of encounters with misery in New York. Appalling.