The Book Show #1246 - Anthony Swofford

The 2005 publication of Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles changed author and former sniper Anthony Swofford’s life. The Gulf War memoir became a best-seller and inspired a film adaptation starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Swofford’s follow-up memoir, Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails: A Memoir , examines his life after war and his complicated relationship with his family. Swofford recounts nights of excess and sexual conquest, visits with injured war veterans, and a near-fatal car crash. He also explores his difficult relationship with his father, a philandering, once hard-drinking, now terminally ill Vietnam veteran.