Beans, Bullets and Bandages

Why pick a specific war? At a certain level, one war-torn, bomb-devastated city is pretty much like the next, varying mostly in matters of climate, culture and local language. The human toll of societal breakdown in wartime is a pageant repeated by countries and experienced by soldiers throughout history. Matthew Eck's debut novel, The Farther Shore, is a taut, convincing account of a nameless but still very recognizable conflict. The author describes it as "a universal war story." Eck's economical prose delivers unexpected combinations of punches in a vivid, tactile style. It was such a bitchingly good read that The Pitch named Eck Best Author in the 2008 Best of Kansas City issue. Today, Eck is joined by poet and teacher John Tieman for an 8 p.m. reading at the Writers Place (3607 Pennsylvania, 816-753-1090) as part of the National Endowment for the Arts' Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. See writersplace.org for more information.
Fri., Aug. 7, 7 p.m., 2009