Product Description

QUOTES: " A truly exceptional--account of his time in the Balkans and Chechnya--. I read Loyd's] story of war and addiction (to conflict and to heroin) with a sense of gratitude for the honesty and courage on every page." --"Independent "" I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival." --"The Tim"es " Magnificent--a stench of blood, excrement, mortar-fire, slivovitz and human bestiality emanates from these pages." --"Literary Review "

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298344 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 321 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Anthony Loyd's first book is a vivid, haunting account of the war in Bosnia from 1993 to 1996, from where he reported for the Daily Telegraph and then the Times as a special correspondent. However, what separates it from standard reportage is the war Loyd was fighting on a personal front, which drove him to seek war as a "final absolution of self-responsibility". While snipers shot people indiscriminately Loyd, living on whisky-chased adrenaline, fought to understand the compulsion he felt to be there and struggled to shoot the pictures that were the pretext for his presence. It is this battle, set against the brutality that tore the Balkans to shreds, that gives the book its anguished focus and embattled majesty.

Loyd gradually reveals a fractured upbringing, which culminated in the death of the father from whom he had been torturously distant for many years. Five years in the army did little to relieve the embittered emotional hangover that had become his burden, and in indulging the impulse that propelled him to war he was following in the footsteps of generations of males in his family. In addition to the stimulation engendered he was also fighting a heroin dependency that reared up when the buzz of the danger passed.

The descriptions of mortar-damaged flesh in Bosnia do not depart easily from the consciousness of the reader, who is left shuddering at the damage they must have inflicted on the author. Loyd, though, free from the constraints of newspaper journalism, writes with an angrily articulate physicality that throbs with a challenging compassion one longs for him to apply to himself. He finally achieves a redemption of sorts, and in the process has written one of the most uncompromising and personally honest accounts of the ugliness of war that puts to shame complacent apathy. Brave, provocative, essential, but not for those who take cream in their coffee. --David Vincent

From the Publisher
A selection of the reviews from the UK press
A selection of the reviews from the UK press
'An extraordinary memoir of the Bosnian War . . . savage and mercilessly readable . . . deserves a place alongside George Orwell, James Cameron and Nicholas Tomalin. It is as good as war reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local. It is about the ditch in which the soldier crouches and the ground on which he fights and maybe dies. The same applies to the war reporter. Anthony Loyd has been there and knows it' MARTIN BELL, The Times

'A truly exceptional book, one of those rare moments in journalistic writing when you can sit back and realise that you are in the presence of somebody willing to take the supreme risk for a writer, of extending their inner self. I finished reading Anthony Loyd's account of his time in the Balkans and Chechnya only a few days ago and am still feeling the after-effects . . . I read his story of war and addiction (to conflict and heroin) with a sense of gratitude for the honesty and courage on every page' FERGAL KEANE, The Independent

'Not since Michael Herr wrote Dispatches has any journalist written so pursuasively about violence and its seductions in all of war's minutiae of awful detail . . . an account that demystifies war and the war reporter and strips them bare before the reader' PETER BEAUMONT, The Observer

'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war . . . far more revealing and convincing than anything recounted to camera by visiting journalists and politicians' ANTHONY BEEVOR, Daily Telegraph

'An astonishing book . . . a raw, vivid and brutally honest account of his transition from thrill seeker to concerned reporter' PHILIP JACOBSON, Daily Mail

'Chilling . . . a true picture into the brutality of war and should be required reading for all those politicians who use phrases such as 'collateral damage' and 'surgical strikes' JOHN NICHOL, Daily Express

'Part war memoir, part coming-of-age tale and part junkie diary, it's a raw account of the hypnotic lures of violence, heroin and danger' CARLA POWER, Newsweek

'This is more than just despatches from the front. There's blood-red-vivid descriptions of the fighting, sure, but there's also the dark poetic insight of a man who's seen humanity at its worst. Loyd spares us nothing - not brains spilling out on the street, not his own bleak despair, not even the jokes - and he deserves a medal for it' Maxim

From the Back Cover
'Not since Michael Herr wrote Dispatches has any journalist written so persuasively about violence and its seductions' Peter Beaumont, Observer

'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph

'A truly exceptional book, one of those rare moments in journalistic writing when you can sit back and realise that you are in the presence of somebody willing to take the supreme risk for a writer, of extending their inner self. I finished reading Anthony Loyd's account of his time in the Balkans and Chechnya only a few days ago and I am still feeling the after-effects...I read his story of war and addiction (to conflict and to heroin) with a sense of gratitude for the honesty and courage on every page' Fergal Keane, Independent

'Deserves a place alongside George Orwell, James Cameron and Nicholas Tomalin. It is as good as war reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival' Martin Bell, The Times

'An astonishing book...a raw, vivid and brutally honest account of his transition from thrill-seeker to concerned and compassionate reporter' Philip Jacobson, Daily Mail

'Magnificent...a stench of blood, excrement, mortar-fire, slivovitz and human bestiality emanates from these pages' Ben Shephard, Literary Review

Customer Reviews

Don't EXPECT journalism!!!
This is not just another journalistic account of the war in the Balkans (and in Chechnya come to that). This is much much more. Anthony Loyd, it has to be said, does not show a very loving and friendly description of himself...

Some customer reviews mention the portrait that he paints of himself and I believe this to be central. He knows that his account is biased but that is because he lived in one particular part of Bosnia during the war and met few Serbs... He knows that this is not journalism for journalism's sake. This is much MUCH more. This is an account of humanity in recent years, on both a global scale and a personal one.

For all those who understand that humanity is not all that pretty...

Stunningly good book
This is not the sort of book I would have thought I'd have liked. I'vebeen researching the Yugoslav wars and started this expecting the usualfactual analysis/wisdom with the benefit of hindsight sort of thing. Realising that the author was also, for much of the time he was coveringthe wars, struggling with drug addiction further confused my expectations. Some peace-loving hippy then? No, not at all. I have to say, in fact,that given the enormous subject he's tackling, the subject of the author'sown personality became far more compelling for me than the wars he wascovering. He is fascinating - startlingly honest, which is possibly whyhe finds it so hard to live with himself. That said, the book isbeautifully written and about as enlightening as you're going to get onthe real dynamics of this war - and all wars.

A war story from the inside and out
This is a truly remarkable book. I read it and continued to reread it my mind well after I finished the last page. The sheer hideousness of what is described stops making an impact at times and one actually starts to get numb to grim details, a clear sign that the author has succeeded in moulding the readers perceptions to his own.

Anthony Loyd describes his heroin addiction in parallel with the war in Bosnia. This creates a two-tier description of war: internal and external. Whilst in terms of pages, the addiction is far less prominent in the book, it seems to dwell in the background throughout the carnage, you can't help but get the feeling that without the heroin, the author would not have continued to go back to Bosnia, following weeks of stagnation in London.

As the book progresses, the authors perspective changes not in a tangible or obvious fashion, but subtly, with his compassion starting to emerge and his idealogy crystallising. This is quite cathartic for the reader, without this it would be an empty and desolate tale. There is great strength in Anthony Loyd in the war, and great weakness in peace where his addiction flourishes. This in itself is grounds for an interesting read.

However, perhaps the most rewarding aspect of reading this book is the fine detail of the carnage coupled with the strength in the people that the author encounters. You catch a glimpse of how people maintained their sanity and dignity in the midst of such madness, and for that alone, this is well worth reading.