Fives and Twenty-Fives (MP3 CD)

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Fives and Twenty-Fives By Michael Pitre, Kevin T. Collins (Read by), Nick Sullivan (Read by) Cover Image

Fives and Twenty-Fives (MP3 CD)

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Out of Print

September 2014 Indie Next List


“An unforgettable tale of war, Fives and Twenty-Fives tells the story of a Marine Corps engineering platoon assigned to the dangerous and unending task of repairing road damage caused by improvised explosives on Iraqi highways. The unit travels with a bomb disposal team because secondary explosives are nearly always found at every scene. Told through the flashbacks of Marines struggling to find their place back in the States, the incidents coalesce in a devastating story of heroism, sacrifice, and vulnerability. The author served as a captain in the Marines, and his story is both textured and emotionally searing.”
— Mark LaFramboise, Politics & Prose Books and Coffee Shop, Washington, DC

Staff Reviews


A
green lieutenant, the Marines under his command, and the “terp” who
translates for them form a kind of family—with all the love and pain
that implies—in this deeply personal novel of the Iraq war. Pitre weaves
together past and present, using post-war scenes of dislocation and
grief to recall scenes of war, the grit of it, the violence, the danger,
but also the camaraderie, the trust, the pride in one another’s skill.
The squad is tasked with road maintenance—and although fixing potholes
may seem like an innocuous pastime, the potholes in question are used to
bury and disguise bombs. A bomb in every pothole, high alert the name
of the game, fives and twenty-fives the series of meticulous steps the
Marines must take to identify threats: the reality of modern warfare. As
harrowing as this may sound, it is no more so than the characters’
attempts to return to civilian life. Writing with caustic wit but also a
delicate compassion, Pitre lays down the scenes involving these
characters like cards dealt from a Tarot deck, each wartime face
forecasting the shape of that same face in the future. Face by face,
scene by scene, character by character—American and Iraqi alike—they
wound their way into my heart; taken together, the chorus of their
voices left me stunned. – Betsy Burton, The King’s English Bookshop,
Salt Lake City, Utah

— Betsy Burton

It's the rule--always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep 25 meters. A bomb inside 25 meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead.

Fives and Twenty-Fives marks the measure of a marine's life in the road-repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger.

Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there's Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture--from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries--is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country. Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them.

A debut both transcendent and rooted in the flesh, Fives and Twenty-Fives is a deeply necessary novel.

Product Details ISBN: 9781501227325
ISBN-10: 1501227327
Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance
Publication Date: May 5th, 2015
Language: English