About the Author

Dalton Trumbo, author of the brilliant novel, Night of the Aurochs, was one of the most prolific and important literary figures of our time. His more than sixty screenplays include Spartacus, Exodus, Papillon, and the Academy Award-winning The Brave One. Johnny Got His Gun is the most highly-acclaimed work of Mr. Trumbo's remarkable career.

Reviews

Trumbo's horrific 1939 novel of World War I garnered the National Book Award and kudos from critics. The book resurfaced as one of the leading protest novels during the Vietnam era. With current events as they are, the antiwar book will no doubt find a new audience. This edition includes a new foreword by Cindy Sheehan and a readers' guide. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

"Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury accounting to eloquence."--The New York Times

"[It is] very hard to write about Johnny Got His Gun without being guilty of understatement or hysterics. It is a terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity."--Washington Post

"An extraordinarily agitating book, passionate in its language, potent in its emotional effect, a novel that tells in unsparingly honest words what a wickedly gruesome business war is, and how wickedly wasteful. Johnny Got His Gun, full of horror and hurt, will be a terrific and vivid experience for anyone who reads it."--Boston Herald

"It is hard to imagine a more persuasive argument for staying out of war than this smooth, savage, brilliant tale."--Chicago Daily News

This audio edition of Trumbo's classic 1939 novel of war's insanity begins as a bit of a slog because of the lengthy padding at its start. With two introductions, from Cindy Sheehan and Ron Kovic, that attempt to place the novel in the context of more recent armed conflicts in both Iraq and Vietnam, it is the better part of a disc before the book properly begins. Once it does, though, the slog ceases. Trumbo's novel is spine-tingling in its immediacy and horror, and William Dufris (while occasionally fumbling around in his bag of voices) mostly gives the words room to breathe. For this book, little more is necessary. A Citadel paperback. (Apr.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.