Marine Corps veteran Matt Young's second book, End of Active Service, piercingly explores what happens when a service member leaves the Marines and returns home to the Midwest.
As the novel opens, narrator Dean Pusey promises that he's "going to tell... a love story. Might have to tell you about the war, too." He does exactly that in a narrative that seesaws violently between his past and present. Ghosts and flashbacks dog him with memories of Iraq and Camp Pendleton, Calif.. Now that he's "joined the First Civ Div," he's sleeping in his childhood bedroom, working for UPS, and hanging out with his childhood best friend, Court, a low-level drug dealer.
Dean is riddled with rage, guilt, and self-doubt about who he was, who he is, and who he should be. He provokes conflict everywhere he turns, even at home. He's all jagged edges, which snag on the softness of the civilian world as encapsulated by the phrase "fat and happy," which becomes one of Dean's refrains. The novel swerves when Max, a woman he meets at a bar, becomes pregnant soon after. Dean wants to do right by Max and his unborn child, so they move in together. Though he continues to swallow his words to seem normal and keep the peace, he can't sleep and refuses to see a therapist. Eventually, Dean's life implodes, but this turns out to be the catalyst for change he needs.
Young (Eat the Apple) skillfully deploys repetition and immersive memories to amplify the toxic spirals of Dean's thoughts. End of Active Service is an unsparing, fist-clenching ride. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator