The Road Ahead: Fiction From the Forever War

These masterfully crafted stories from writers who have served reflect the entire breadth of human emotion--loss, anger, joy, love, fear, and courage--and the evolving nature of what has become America''s "Forever War."

From debut writers to experienced contributors whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, this exceptional collection promises to be the definitive fictional look at the aftereffects of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, and will resonate with the reader long after the final page.

Including stories by: Elliot Ackerman, Benjamin Busch, Brandon Caro, Maurice Decaul, Teresa Fazio, Thomas Gibbons Neff, Aaron Gwyn, Alex Horton, Matt Robinson, Kristen L. Rouse, Chris Wolfe, Kayla M. Williams, Brandon Willitts, and many others.

Adrian Bonenberger is a student at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton’s MFA program for creative writing, from which he expects to graduate in May of 2016. He has a B.A. from Yale in English Literature and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia. He joined the Army in 2005, and deployed twice to Afghanistan as an infantry officer. He has been featured in The New York Times, and has written military-themed essays for a variety of online and print publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, and Foreign Policy. He co-edits an intellectual blog, ＂The Wrath Bearing Tree＂ and volunteers with Words After War and the Yale Veterans Association. He is the author of the memoir Afghan Post.

Brian Castner is the author of The Long Walk, an Amazon Best Book of 2012. He previously served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, commanding bomb disposal units in Balad and Kirkuk, and as a military contractor and consultant, training soldiers and Marines prior to their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has received grants from The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Chautauqua Institution, and his writing has appeared in Wired, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, VICE News, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Outside, The Daily Beast, and on National Public Radio.