{"id":550,"date":"2015-12-28T15:44:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T15:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/?page_id=550"},"modified":"2022-03-16T14:34:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T12:34:32","slug":"pumpkinflowers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/pumpkinflowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pumpkinflowers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pumpkinflowers<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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A 2016\u00a0New York Times\u00a0Notable Book<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Amazon\u2019s\u00a010 Best Books of 2016<\/a><\/p>\n

Chosen as one of the year\u2019s best by Booklist<\/a>,\u00a0Mother Jones<\/a>,\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0National Post<\/a>, and the\u00a0Globe and Mail<\/a><\/p>\n

Winner of the\u00a02017 Vine Award<\/a>\u00a0and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, shortlisted for the\u00a0RBC Taylor Prize<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0Hillary Westin Writer\u2019s Trust Prize<\/a>, and Israel\u2019s Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for military writing<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the 1990s, but it would send out ripples still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for \u2018casualties.\u2019 Award-winning writer Matti Friedman re-creates the harrowing experience of a band of young Israeli soldiers\u2013the author among them\u2013charged with holding this remote outpost, a task that changed them forever and foreshadowed the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart memoir, part reportage, part military history, this powerful narrative captures the birth of today\u2019s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war. Raw and beautifully rendered,\u00a0Pumpkinflowers\u00a0will take its place among classic narratives by George Orwell, Philip Caputo, and Vasily Grossman. It is an unflinching look at the way we conduct war today.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Praise for Pumpkinflowers<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\u201cFriedman\u2019s sober and striking new memoir . . . [is] on a par with Tim O\u2019Brien\u2019s\u00a0The Things They Carried<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 its Israeli analog.\u201d<\/div>— Gal Beckerman, The New York Times Book Review<\/i>
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\u201cA book about young men transformed by war, written by a veteran whose dazzling literary gifts gripped my attention from the first page to the last.\u201d<\/div>— Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cDestined to become a classic text on the absurdities of war\u2026 A beautifully written account of a young Israeli soldier\u2019s experience. A stunning achievement.\u201d<\/div>—<\/em>Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and New York Times bestselling author of The Good Spy<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cThe narrative is reminiscent of novels by Denis Johnson and Robert Stone \u2026 A haunting yet wry tale of young people at war, cursed by political forces beyond their control, that can stand alongside the best narrative nonfiction coming out of Afghanistan and Iraq.\u201d<\/div>—  Kirkus <\/em>(starred review)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cFriedman\u2019s experiences provide a critical historical perspective on the changing climate of war in the Middle East\u00a0\u2026\u00a0His lyrical writing, attention to detail, and personal honesty draw the reader into empathy along with understanding. Friedman\u2019s memoir deserves wide readership.\u201d<\/div>—  Publishers Weekly (starred review)<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>

“Iraq veterans finally have their book; a manuscript that really deals with the whole of the Iraq experience…Matti Friedman has done a great service in helping Americans understand our own unpopular and ambiguous war by giving us the lens of Israel’s unpopular and ambiguous war. ”<\/p><\/div>\u2014 Douglas Ollivant, US Army (ret.), former National Security Council Director and Senior Advisor in Afghanistan<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>

\u201cA compelling war memoir containing elements of terror, observation, boredom, and grim (at times absurd) humor\u2026an excellent read.\u201d<\/div>— Library Journal (starred review)<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cMatti Friedman\u2019s requiem to youth and family and soldiering\u00a0hits the mark to which all of us\u00a0aspire.\u00a0This book\u00a0broke my heart.\u201d<\/div>— Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cAn instant-classic war diary.\u201d<\/div>\u2014 Max J. Rosenthal,\u00a0Mother Jones<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cPumpkinflowers is a sad, lyrical book\u2014proud and fierce on its own terms. [Friedman\u2019s] memoirs of his time in the mist and the mountains of Lebanon are full of haunting insights into what it means to be a soldier. It will be remembered as a classic.\u201d<\/div> \u2014 Ben Judah, Prospect (UK) <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cRiveting. Pumpkinflowers is both an historical jigsaw puzzle and an examination of Israel\u2019s fraught national identity. Friedman recounts an almost forgotten moment in Israel\u2019s long entanglement with her neighbors, managing to illuminate the confusion at the heart of the conflict as well as chillingly echo America\u2019s own slide into prolonged wars in the Middle East.\u201d<\/div> \u2014Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cInspiring, heartbreaking, illuminating. Matti Friedman\u2019s brilliant account of a forgotten war seen through the lens of a simple soldier is at once a coming of age story and an essential chronicle about how the 21st century was born.\u201d<\/div> \u2014Yossi Klein Halevi, author of Like Dreamers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cAn unforgettable nonfiction account of men changed by war, told in a voice that is both straightforward and undeniably literary.\u201d<\/div> \u2014Amazon.com Editorial Team, 10 Best Books of 2016<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/i>
\u201cA compelling narrative, freighted with explosive geopolitical implications.\u201d<\/div> \u2014Booklist, starred review<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PumpkinflowersA 2016\u00a0New York Times\u00a0Notable Book One of Amazon\u2019s\u00a010 Best Books of 2016 Chosen as one of the year\u2019s best by Booklist,\u00a0Mother Jones,\u00a0Foreign Affairs,\u00a0the\u00a0National Post, and the\u00a0Globe and Mail Winner of the\u00a02017 Vine Award\u00a0and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, shortlisted for the\u00a0RBC Taylor Prize,\u00a0the\u00a0Hillary Westin Writer\u2019s Trust Prize, and Israel\u2019s Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for military writing \u201cIt was one hilltop in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-blank-4.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":68,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/550\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}