The Books Briefing: War, and What Comes After

The end of May in the United States is a time for memorializing the impact of war—in particular, the sacrifices made by service members and their families. Yet the ultimate costs of war—to individuals, communities, and countries—are in many ways incalculable, and attempts to honor the military can sometimes seem shallow. The author Ben Fountain critiques such celebrations in his satirical novel about a young soldier’s homecoming. The fiction writer Julianne Pachico explores what it means for children to grow up amid a conflict that lasts decades. And the journalist Steve Coll examines the factors that have kept U.S. troops in Afghanistan for almost 18 years.

David Means’s