Sand Queen

Zusatztext 77497022 Informationen zum Autor Helen Benedict, a Columbia University professor, has written four previous novels, five nonfiction books, and a play. Her novels have received citations for best book of the year from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago and New York Public Libraries. Klappentext Nineteen-year-old Kate Brady joined the army to bring honor to her family and to the Middle East. Instead, she finds herself in a forgotten corner of the Iraq desert in 2003, guarding a makeshift American prison. There, Kate meets Naema Jassim, an Iraqi medical student whose father and little brother have been detained in the camp. Kate and Naema promise to help each other, but the war soon strains their intentions. Like any soldier, Kate must face the daily threats of combat duty, but as a woman, she is in equal danger from the predatory men in her unit. Naema suffers bombs, starvation, and the loss of her home and family. As the two women struggle to survive and hold on to the people they love, each comes to have a drastic and unforeseeable effect on the other's life. Culled from real life experiences of female soldiers and Iraqis, Sand Queen offers a story of hope, courage and struggle from the rare perspective of women at war.[ K A T E ] IT'S THE BIGGEST frigging spider I’ve ever seen in my life. From one hairy leg to the other, the whole thing’s as long as my forearm. So I make sure it’s dead first. Nudge it with the butt of my rifle till it flips over, limp and sandy. Then I pick it up by a leg, haul it into the tent like a shopping bag and nail it to the pole beside the head of my cot, right under my crucifix. That should keep Macktruck quiet, at least for the time being. He’s terrified of spiders. Asshole. The whistling is loud outside the tent today; a creepy, skin-prickling sound I can never get used to. The desert whistles all day and night out here. The hissing whistle of the wind cutting past your helmet. The moaning whistle of it winnowing through the razor wire. I stand under the hot canvas a moment, just listening. And then it hits me again, that deep-down ache that makes me want to curl up and cry. “What the fuck are you doing, Brady?” It’s Will Rickman, this bony young specialist in my squad with zitty skin and an Adam’s apple twice the size of his brain. I wipe my hands on my pants. “Nothing.” Rickman steps closer and squints at my spider. “Look at that thing. It’s disgusting. It’s fuckin’ bleeding black ooze.” “Don’t talk like that about Fuzzy.” Rickman raises his eyebrows. But all he says is, “Let’s go, they’re waiting.” I pick up my rifle and follow him, sunglasses over my eyes, scarf over my mouth. Ducking against the wind, the sand whipping into my cheeks, I run to the Humvee and cram into the back behind the other guy in my team, DJ, and our squad leader, Staff Sergeant Kormick. “We got better things to do than wait while you powder your nose, Brady,” Kormick shouts to me over the wind, shoving the Humvee into gear with a grinding wrench. “Don’t keep us waiting again. Got it?” “Got it, Sar’nt.” While we drive along the dirt road to the checkpoint, the guys shooting their usual bull, I gaze out the slit of a back window into the early morning light. Dirty gray sand stretches as far as I can see, blending so exactly with the dust-filled sky it obliterates the horizon. On either side of the road are rows of rectangular olive-drab tents, their roofs droopy and covered in dust. The ones on the left are for us, the ones on the right behind the loops of razor wire are for the prisoners. But other than that, there’s nothing out there but an endless gray blur. And a tree. I like that tree, standing outside the wire all by itself in the middle of the desert. I cal...

Product details

• Authors: Helen Benedict
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.07.2012
• EAN: 9781616951849
• ISBN: 978-1-61695-184-9
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 211 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature