Maggot — Robert Flanagan

A thousand miles from the nearest war zone--in a foreign country call the U.S. Marine Corps, a few good men are finding out what living hell is all about. The

place: Parris Island, S.C. The time: basic training. For Tom Adamczyk and Joe Waite--two of the seventy raw recruits of Platoon 197--it's a bizarre and violent journey into degradation, fear, and confusion under the onslaught of drill instructor Sgt. Maguire. Maguire is out to turn lowly maggots into Marines--and he'll use any means he can. But when Maguire crosses the line between cruelty and sadism, and an official investigation is launched, each man is forced to make a choice between the truth and a lie. And for Adamczyk and Waite the choice will shape the rest of their lives--not as maggots, or Marines, but as men.

"When it comes to novels written about boot camp life in the United States military, nothing compares to Robert Flanagan's revealing and wonderfully written classic, Maggot." -Donald Ray Pollock