Landing Zones — Edward Micus

"Landing Zones" is a profound and funny take on growing up in a poignant world where men are told to fight in wars that make no sense and where some of them survive to suffer through postwar trauma. It's a humorous, ironic world where adolescents with hormones on fire race like whippets through a world of costumed adults who are too busy doing God's work to acknowledge children at play and teenagers in anguish. It's a world of touching stories about love's tender complications, where the awkwardness of courtship sometimes gives way to the consolation of finding someone who is real in a world that can too often seem surreal.

Men thirty to fifty will love this book. Married women and daughters will want to give it as gifts. Military vets will buy it to remember and digest. Others, including Catholics and relatives of soldiers, will also want it. Readers will buy it to remember what it was like to fall in love, to reminisce about childhood, and to enjoy the camaraderie of men. It will also appeal, like the stories of Tim O'Brien or James Jones, to aficionados of the short story who have a passion for language, which, as Micus writes, is "all we ever leave behind."

Edward Micus was born in Chicago, raised in Iowa, and sent to Vietnam. He returned, completed an M.A. in creative writing and now lives in Minnesota. His work has appeared in "The North American Review, The Indiana Review," and many other literary journals. This is his first book.