On Leave

“We live entirely, especially if we are writers,” Joan Didion states, “by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the `ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.” If this “shifting phantasmagoria” also involves the often fragmented, blurry, and contradictory experience of war, what formal and stylistic modes do nonfiction writers implement to represent this experience? By tracing first-person nonfiction narratives from WWI, Vietnam, and the more recent “forever wars,” Martin examines how writers have captured the experience of war by adopting craft techniques rooted in Modernist collage and cinematic montage. Documenting the rise of the “blockbuster” film, along with the influence of visual media, Martin argues that—since the American War in Vietnam— some of the most stark and affecting personal narratives of war succeed through fragmentation, collage, and polyphony. Martin also includes his dissertation, a collection of essays centered around his military experiences and service in Iraq.