‘In a lovely Atlanta suburb, two neighbours, both decent yet damaged men, find themselves on opposite sides of the fault line in a fracturing America. Finkel’s account is poetic, profound, and irresistibly page turning. It's The White Album for a new decade of division and dissolution.’
Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse
‘With An American Dreamer, David Finkel offers a third instalment on the story he began with The Good Soldiers and continued in Thank You for Your Service, and, as with those previous books, I was gutted, heartened, and grateful all over again. Gutted by the incalculable costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both to the millions of individual combat soldiers and their families, as well as to the country as a whole; heartened by the basic human decency of so many of the people Finkel portrays; and, finally, grateful for the essential stories he tells in An American Dreamer. For anyone hoping to understand what has become of America these past twenty years, An American Dreamer and its companion books are indispensable.’
Ben Fountain, bestselling author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
‘Finkel is a wonderful guide to the inner terrain of his characters. He shows rather than tells, keeping their dialogue and the private thoughts behind it direct and relatable … An American Dreamer shows us that behind all the yelling and distrust that there is vulnerability and hope.’
Nick Haslam, Inside Story
‘In An American Dreamer Finkel treats journalism as an art form. It is accurate and personal but still doesn’t feel biased or singular in its angle and focus. The use of poetic language, and a reflective flow reminds me somewhat of the fiction works by Eshkol Nevo and Virginia Woolf. Indeed, I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a fiction story, but in fact a recount of a person’s real life. Finkel succeeds in structuring his reporting in such a way that builds relatable characters, creates suspense, and follows an arc all while delivering a satisfying read – as good as a thriller. With his exeptional storytelling, Finkel masters the delivery of the raw human experience during some of the defining moments in American history … An American Dreamer is an image of a divided America and a divided world where we all share common humanity. Finkel’s focus on details and feelings proves him to be an extremely empathetic writer with a unique offering to the journalism genre.’
Anna Blaby, The AU Review
‘A keenly observed depiction of a divided country … People are complicated. And one of the strengths of this excellent book is how deftly Finkel presents those complications … In this intimate, remarkable book, Finkel lets us inside the worlds of two imperfect men. By doing so, he helps us understand the fragmented reality that is America today.’
Minneapolis Star Tribune
‘[A] nuanced account of four years (2016–20) in the life of Iraq War veteran and Georgia resident Brent Cummings … The book’s compassionate depictions of Brent, Laura, and Michael are so well-drawn that it reads like a novel, but the profiles are real and empathetic. A beautifully rendered, sensitively told story about a veteran who returns home to a nation where many things are changing or already altered forever.’
Library Journal
‘An intimate look at American lives in fraught times … [A]n immersive portrayal of contemporary America, from Election Day 2016 through Election Day 2020, through the eyes of Iraqi war veteran Brent Cummings, his family, and his neighbours in a town in Georgia … A sharply observed depiction of a divided country.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Finkel … examines America’s political, social, and cultural divides in this immersive profile of Brent Cummings, an Iraq War veteran and instructor in military science at the University of North Georgia. Drawing on conversations with Cummings and his friends and family, primarily between 2016 and 2021, Finkel finds that the unifying belief among those he interviews — across the political spectrum — is the idea that the country is fracturing … Finkel’s prosodic narration has Cummings reflecting on Trump’s calls for a US-Mexico border wall in the shadow of the West Bank barrier wall. It’s an evocative contribution to the shelf on what ails America in the age of Trump.’
Publishers Weekly
Praise for Thank You for Your Service :
‘[A] heartbreaking book ... The stories of the soldiers and their families portrayed in Thank You for Your Service possess a visceral and deeply affecting power ... that will haunt readers long after they have finished this book.’
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Praise for Thank You for Your Service :
‘Together with its masterful prequel The Good Soldiers, [Thank You for Your Service] measures the wages of the war in Iraq — the wages of war, period — as well as anything I've read … [Finkel] atones for our scant attention by paying meticulous heed.’
Frank Bruni, The New York Times
Praise for Thank You for Your Service :
‘Finkel absents himself from the narrative, immersing the reader in the quotidian life of soldiers and their families. Thank You for Your Service is elegantly reported, free of the entanglements of crusading self-aggrandisement on the one hand and, on the other, an overidentification with its subjects.’
Elizabeth D. Samet, The New York Times Book Review
Praise for The Good Soldiers:
‘Finkel brilliantly captures the terrors of ordinary men enduring extraordinary circumstances … ferociously reported, darkly humorous, and spellbinding … Finkel has made art out of a defining moment in history.’
Doug Stanton, The New York Times
Praise for The Good Soldiers:
‘It is Mr Finkel’s accomplishment in this harrowing book that he not only depicts what the Iraq war is like for the soldiers of the 2-16 — 14 of whom die — but also the incalculable ways in which the war bends (or in some cases warps) the remaining arc of their lives. He captures the sense of comradeship the men develop among themselves. And he also captures the difficulty many of the soldiers feel in trying to adapt to ordinary life back home in the States, and the larger disconnect they continue to feel between the war that politicians and generals discussed and the war that they knew firsthand.’
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Praise for The Good Soldiers:
‘This is the finest book yet written on the platoon-level combat of the Iraq war … Unforgettable — raw, moving, and rendered with literary control … No one who reads this book will soon forget its imagery, words, or characters.’
Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars
