Swofford knows all about this. He too was brought up in a military family and spent four years as a child on a base near Tokyo. There he lived in a US-style home, with a mall and American shops and restaurants. Ironically, he says he enjoyed it. "Those four years were one of the most special times in my family. It was on that base that we were the most cohesive and functional, and a lot of that was because we were on that base, isolated, so family became important to us."
The characters in Exit A are not so lucky. The pressures of military life seem to have removed any chance of them developing a genuine sense of love. And though Swofford led a happy childhood on his own base, growing up in a military family has left him with issues. In Jarhead, he described watching US marines on television and believing that warfare was the only way to express manhood. That led to his decision to join up at 17.
But Exit A is less concerned with Swofford's own choices than those of his elder brother. Jeff was more of a rebel, who pushed against the "gypsy lifestyle" of military family. Swofford admits that Severin is in part an exploration of what Jeff might have done. "It's a bit of a fantasy," he says. Jeff died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1998. "I shouldn't be talking about this. It's not about the book," he says swiftly but politely.
So far, reactions to Exit A have been a mixture of lavish praise and harsh critique. He says he does not care either way. "A writing mentor once told me that good reviews are only good for the author's ego and bad reviews are bad for the author's ego. Neither situation is very helpful, so I don't read any reviews. There is nothing any review could teach me, good or bad."
A good soldier still, Swofford remains stubbornly on his mission. He is already working on his second novel; this time he is tackling head-on America's second foray into Iraq and its terrible consequences. He is planning a story of two brothers in New York — one an artistic type, the other a soldier returning from his second tour of duty. They sound like both sides of Swofford's own experience. Given the current political climate in America, it is likely to be controversial.
"Right now, war is fertile ground in America," he says. "It is the number one topic in terms of understanding America for other people and also for Americans themselves." That may be good news for Swofford's admiring fans, but it's bad news for the rest of the world.
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