Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Great Contemporary War-Writing Quiz

 

30 questions; let’s see who knows their stuff. Answers below.

27-30 Correct: Expert

23-26: Sharpshooter

19-22: Marksman

Less than 19: Bolo

Ready, go!

1.  “The war tried to kill us in the spring.” This is the opening line to what 2012 novel by an Army veteran about two buddies deployed to Iraq?

2. “We shot dogs.” This is the opening line to what 2014 short-story by a former Marine?

3. The author of the 2011 short-story collection You Know When the Men Are Gone is ______.

4. In 2012, this novel about an Army Iraq veterans attending a Dallas Cowboys football game was a finalist for the National Book Award.

5. Match the author with the title of his or her story in the 2013 short-story anthology Fire and Forget:

Jacob Siegal                      “The Train

Brian Van Reet                “Big Two-Hearted Hunting Creek”

Mariette Kalinowski       “Smile, There are IEDs Everywhere”

6. What are the names of the Iraq Army veteran and Afghanistan Navy veteran who started the NYC non-profit war-writing organization Words After War?

7. This 2012 novel set in Afghanistan drew inspiration from the Greek classic “Antigone.”

8. Match the title and author name of these GWOT war novels written by civilian women:

Roxana Robinson                We All Come Home

Helen Benedict                    Carthage

Joyce Carol Oates               Sand Queen

Katey Schultz                      Be Safe I Love You

Cara Hoffman                       Sparta

9. Name the titles of the two graphic novels written by Maximillian Uriarte, one set in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan.

10. This novel by Marine veteran Elliot Ackerman takes its title from a phrase used to describe American casualties suffered at the hand of their Afghanistan allied partners.

11. Match the author and title of these novels written in the early years of the GWOT veteran-writing boom:

Benjamin Buchholz         The Sandbox

David Zimmerman          Last One In

Nicholas Kulish              One Hundred and One Nights

12. Match the names and titles of these novels and short-story collections written by male civilian authors:

Luke Mogelson            A Big Enough Lie

Eric Bennett                These Heroic, Happy Dead

Jonathan Chopra         The Good Lieutenant

Aaron Gwyn                 Veteran Crisis Hotline

Whitney Terrell           Wynne’s War

13. The name of Marine veteran Atticus Lish’s novel about a former Marine adrift in New York City is ____.

14. Match the names of the Iraqi authors with their works:

Sinan Antoon            The Corpse Exhibition

Hassan Blasim           Frankenstein in Baghdad

Ahmed Saadawi        The Corpse Washer

15. Match the name of the war-writing collective/seminar/journal and its founder:

The Wrath-Bearing  Tree           Lovella Calica

Veterans Writing Project            Adrian Bonenberger

Voices from War                         Travis Martin

Military Experience and the Arts           Kara Krauze

Warrior Writers                           Ron Capps

16. Which military academy sponsored the War, Literature, and the Arts conferences in 2011 and 2018?

17. In what branch did vet-writers Brian Castner, Jesse Goolsby, Eric Chandler, and J.A. Moad serve?

18. In what year did Phil Klay’s short-story collection Redeployment win the National Book Award?

19. This Navy veteran’s short story “Kattekoppen” first appeared in The New Yorker in 2013 and then in the author’s short-story collection Bring Out the Dog in 2018.

20. The proprietors of MilSpeak Foundation and Middle West Press are ______ and ______, respectively.

21. The title of this poem by Brian Turner was later used as the title for an Academy Award-winning movie. What is the title?

22. What are the names of the memoirs written by the following veterans:

Brian Turner ____

Benjamin Busch ____

Ron Capps ____

Kayla Williams ____

23. Match the author with a volume of poetry they have written:

Colin Halloran              Sand Opera

Hugh Martin                Lines Composed During a Lull in the Fighting

Kevin Powers               The Stick Soldiers

Phillip Metres              Shortly Thereafter

24. Match the author with a volume of poetry they have written:

Lisa Stice                   The Iraqi Nights

Jehanne Dubrow      Clamor

Elyse Fenton.             Stateside

Dunya Mikhail           Forces

25. The Army veteran author of the novels Fobbit and Brave Deeds is _______.

26. The two novels set in Afghanistan written by Pakistani-British author Nadeem Aslam are ______ and _____.

27. “The Trauma Hero” is a concept associated with which Army veteran writer? ______

28. What are the names of the war-writers portrayed in this photo accompanying a 2014 Vanity Fair article titled “The Words of War”?

(Vanity Fair photograph by Jonas Karlsson)

29. What are the names of the authors featured in this 2015 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) panel?

30. What are the names of these war-writing luminaries, taken at a reading at The Strand Bookstore in NYC in 2014?:

BONUS (2 points): Benjamin Busch wrote the introductions to one of the following anthologies and Ron Capps wrote the other. Match the author with the anthology:

Retire the Colors

Incoming

Answers:

1: Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds

2: Phil Klay, “Redeployment”

3: Siobhan Fallon

4: Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

5: Jacob Siegal: “Smile, IEDs Are Everwhere.” Brian Van Reet: “Big Two-Hearted Hunting Creek.” Mariette Kalinowski: “The Train”

6: Matt Gallagher and Brandon Willetts, respectively

7: Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya’s The Watch

8: Roxana Robinson: Sparta. Helen Benedict: Sand Queen. Joyce Carol Oates: Carthage. Katey Schultz: We All Come Home. Cara Hoffman: Be Safe I Love You

9: The White Donkey (Iraq), Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli (Afghanistan)

10: Green on Blue

11: Benjamin Buchholz, One Hundred and One Nights; David Zimmerman, The Sandbox; Nicholas Kulish, One Hundred and One Nights

12: Luke Mogelson, These Heroic, Happy Dead; Eric Bennett, A Big Enough Lie. Jonathan Chopra, Veteran Crisis Hotline; Aaron Gwyn, Wynne’s War; Whitney Terrell, The Good Lieutenant

13: Preparation for the Next Life

14: Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer; Hassan Blasim, The Corpse Exhibition; Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad

15:  The Wrath-Bearing Tree: Adrian Bonenberger; Veterans Writing Project: Ron Capps; Voices from War: Kara Krauze; Military Experience and the Arts; Travis Martin; Warrior Writers: Lovella Calica

16: The United States Air Force Academy

17: United States Air Force

18: 2014

19: Will Mackin

20: Tracy Crow and Randy Brown (Charlie Sherpa)

21: Brian Turner’s The Hurt Locker

22: Brian Turner, My Life as a Foreign Country; Benjamin Busch, Dust to Dust; Ron Capps, Seriously Not All Right; Kayla Williams, Loved My Weapon More Than You (or, Plenty of Time When We Get Home)

23: Colin Halloran, Shortly Thereafter; Hugh Martin, The Stick Soldiers; Kevin Powers, Lines Composed During a Lull in the Fighting; Philip Metres, Sand Opera

24: Lisa Stice, Forces; Jehanne Dubrow, Stateside; Elyse Fenton, Clamor; Dunya Mikhail, The Iraqi Nights

25: David Abrams

26: The Wasted Vigil and The Blind Man’s Garden

27: Roy Scranton

28: Left to right: Maurice Decaul, Phil Klay, Elliot Ackerman, Kevin Powers, Brandon Willetts, Matt Gallagher

29: Left to right: Brian Turner, Katey Shultz, Siobhan Fallon, Benjamin Busch, Phil Klay

30: Left to right: Adrian Bonenberger, Roxana Robinson, David Abrams, Matt Gallagher

BONUS: Retire the Colors: Ron Capps; Standing Down: Benjamin Busch