Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Bold and radiant and spare, The Horse Latitudes confronts the question of how to tell a true war story—and the results are breathtaking. Matthew Robinson writes with tenderness and gallows wit about American soldiers in Baghdad who come to grips with fear, grief, and desire in a hypermasculine military culture. A stark, exquisite dispatch." —Leni Zumas, author of The Listeners
Review
"Robinson's clear-eyed account of a band of young soldiers stationed in Iraq is remorseless yet compassionate, bone-dry yet fierce as the desert winds. Their voices linger long after the book is closed: you will not forget them." —Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise
Review
"Robinson's work is wholly original. One immediately understands that he will be taking us into territory that we have not had the privilege of reading about until now." —Dana Johnson, author of Elsewhere, California
Review
"The Horse Latitudes is an extraordinary debut that illuminates the dark corners of combat with grim, biting humor and matter-of-fact eloquence." —Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of Good Morning, Midnight
Description
The Horse Latitudes follows one Cavalry
platoon’s time in Baghdad, Iraq. The missions are long stretches of
boredom broken by flashes of violence. The single sniper shot fired. An
IED loosely buried in the roadside, waiting. A schoolyard of kids
throwing fist-sized rocks at gun trucks. The enemy is vast and changing,
and the downtime is a combination of homesickness, RPGs, and mortar
fire. These men suffer through the war, heat, and each other. The Horse Latitudes
observes not only the firefights and their aftermath, but also the
soldiers’ struggles within themselves: how to fight a faceless enemy,
what it means to serve, how one soldiers, what makes a man, what makes a
good man, what it might mean to die for this, and what it might mean
not to.
About the Author
Matthew Robinson writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and personal
essays. He holds an MFA from Portland State University, where he also
teaches writing. The recipient of a 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship, his
fiction has been published in O-Dark-Thirty, Nailed Magazine, Gobshite Quarterly, Split Lip Magazine, and Clackamas Literary Review. He served six years in the Oregon Army National Guard, deploying to Baghdad, Iraq, in 2004. The Horse Latitudes is his first book.