Somewhere in a Desert

The horrors, hardships, and tragedies of war are revealed through the story of the final hours in the life of John Miller, an American soldier killed during Operation Desert Storm. 12,000 first printing.

This first novel about the Gulf War won six awards in France and is likely to be acclaimed in the United States. It tells the story of a man who went to war but lost his taste for it and then, just before the war ended, wandered off into the desert, where he was killed. The people from the nearby village are all greatly moved by the peace they see in his eyes and find themselves reviewing their lives. Woven into the tale is an account of the great love this white man has for his African American wife. The simple beauty of the prose, set against the callousness of those untouched by the war, renders this a powerful, haunting piece. Recommended for all public libraries as well as high school and college libraries.AAnn Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"The war was over. In the middle of the desert a man lay dead." This is the haunting image reverberating throughout French journalist Sigaud's fervent, and somewhat overwrought, first novel. Set along the border of Iraq and Saudi Arabia at the end of the Gulf War, the story is related in the lyric cadences of a fable. American soldier John Paul Miller knows the war is over, but disoriented and possibly delirious, he drifts off aimlessly from his command post. Wandering past a village, Miller is shot by a blind man's son and dies. Villager Ali ben Fakr and wife Nour al-Koutoubi transcend enmity and tend to Miller's body. His African-American wife, Mary, receiving reports that her husband is missing in action, travels to the desert and, teaming with French minesweeper Robert Natua, discovers the site of her husband's burial in the desert and chooses to leave him where he fell. In Sigaud's circular plot, questions about the details of Miller's death are answered, but the meaning of his death remains elusive. Mary's grieving, vivid memories of her husband suffuse the story with her loss, driving home the point that his death was senseless and suggesting the same of other casualties of national conflicts. (Sigaud emphasizes that Miller was Jewish, Mary is black, the villagers are Muslim.) A terse meditation on war, the book begins with a quotation from French writer J.M.G. Le Cl?zio. "War has begun. No one knows where or how, but it has begun. Mouth open, it stands behind you, whispering. When it is over, no one will remain standing. No one will be spared." The original French title, L'Hypoth?se du d?sert (The Hypothesis of the Desert) better captures the tone of this dark, searching story: a poetic interrogation of the machine of war from the perspectives of those annihilated and those mourning. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a tale set during the Gulf War, French author Sigaud recounts the tale of a corpse found in the desert near an Iraqi village. This dead American soldier astounds the people of the nearby, war-ravaged village and touches them in remarkable ways. He is found several days after the war has ended, and his identity is unknown. Somehow the villagers are moved to daily pilgrimages to this body--the men during the day, and the women, in secret, during the night. Meanwhile, the dead soldier's wife waits at home, ever hopeful, watching the husbands of her friends return without any knowledge of the whereabouts of her own husband. Together with a French official in charge of investigating missing soldiers, she tracks down her husband's body. Nothing new is said in this poignant and fantastic tale about the tragedies of war, but Sigaud achieves an utterly human perspective. Her fable evokes an incredible pathos in a story that reflects how modern-day war affects the emotions of everyone involved. Michael Spinella

Sigauds debut (a prize-winner in France) is a self-consciously artful cry against war, but, with its paper-thin people, readers arent very likely to find it moving. The Gulf War is over, much to the relief of villager Ali ben Fakr as he sets out across the desert early one morning to buy a horse hes always coveted and now has the money for. When he glimpses a soldier in the dunes, he almost keeps going, but, conscience dictating, stops to lookand, filled suddenly with death-fears of his own, swoons by the soldiers body. He returns later with other villagers to bury the unidentified soldierhe wears simple fatigues, has no dog tagsbut something about the soldier keeps the men from doing it. Village women sneak out to see for themselvesand, savior-like, the soldier begins speaking to them of the after-death (They had always wanted a man to speak to them; they wanted nothing else. That he was a stranger, that he was dead, mattered little). Next morning, his body has decayed and is quickly buried. Who was he? Sigauds little book, with its wonderful start, grows thin and artificial in flashing back and forth to let us know that an idealistic Jewish kid from Brooklyn named John Miller had been living in Provo, Utah, with his young and pretty wife Mary, a black girl from the Bronx, now a schoolteacher. Drafted into duty, and in moral revulsion at an especially needless act of cruelty, John, near wars end, walked away from his unit into the desert, writing notes to Mary the while (I love you. I need you here). Tragic? Potentially, but, fatal to any dramatic impact, the good martyr John remains no more than a symbol, the grieving and perfect Mary little beyond a cipher. A French officer comes a little more fully to life but, being peripheral, helps little. Earnest, well intended, conscientiousand half-real at best. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.