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Amazon link: Daybreak
Author: Matt Gallagher (Twitter: @MattGallagher0)
Website: mattgallagherwriter.com
Thumbnail sketch: Exceptional, nuanced fiction grounded in reality from an author hitting his stride. Still thinking about it four days later.
5 Stars
My take on Daybreak
I finished this beautiful novel four days ago, and have been thinking about it constantly since. I haven’t written a substantial review in more than four months (‘substantial’ = more than the minimum 20 words my Kindle says is necessary to post to the mother-site & Goodreads), but knew I wanted to say something about Daybreak, Matt Gallagher’s third novel.
Full disclosure: I’ve attended two of the Words After War writing workshops co-hosted by Mr. Gallagher, even though I haven’t written a lick of fiction in … well … years (sooo many years). The workshop sessions were a outstanding opportunity to read some excellent writing excerpts and engage in thought-provoking discussions with a variety of folks, some veterans, some not.
Fuller disclosure: I read and greatly enjoyed Mr. Gallagher’s second novel, Empire City (my review).
So, I’m a fan of Mr. Gallagher, as an author and as a person. I know he’s been to Ukraine since the invasion, and I have no doubt his experiences there are faithfully reflected in Daybreak. Well, as faithfully as war stories get.
Two American veterans of the post-9/11 Forever Wars, Staff Sergeant Han Lee and Corporal Luke ‘Pax’ Paxton, travel to Ukraine to volunteer to fight the Russians. Their motivations differ: for Lee it’s a chance to fulfill his vision of soldiering; for Pax, it’s more complicated. He appears to be attempting to reset his life to an earlier time when things made sense, and that includes re-connecting with Svitlana, a Ukrainian woman he was involved with before deploying to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, and especially one awful day, set Luke adrift from who he was before, but without a clear grasp of who he should be now. Asked why he came to Ukraine, Luke’s lame response of “I want to help” doesn’t cut it with a battle-hardened Ukrainian recruiter. Separated from Lee – accepted by the recruiter after expressing a desire to shoot Russians in the face – Luke is once again unmoored, this time in a country at war.
And Ukraine is truly a nation at war, unlike America during the Forever Wars. The contrast is subtle but telling; refugees from the eastern part of the country are omnipresent and despite being hundreds of miles from the front Luke experiences frequent air raid warnings. He provides aid to injured civilians after a missile strike and marvels at the realization that at no point in America’s recent wars has the U.S. military not enjoyed air superiority.
In addition to nuanced portraits of Luke and Svitlana, the author has filled Daybreak with a cast of indelible secondary characters, including aid workers, a mob boss, and Lee and Luke’s former commanding officer among others. It says something to me as a reader about the writer’s ability to create a believable and compelling world when I want to know more about the folks in the background.
Daybreak is an exceptional novel, and essential reading for those interested in the generation of Americans who fought our Forever Wars.
5 stars
Scott Whitmore, writer 