In his novel, “Youngblood," Matt Gallagher displays a skillful writer’s slight-of-hand. He recreates the sights and sounds - intense desert heat, confusion, and fear - of a soldier's world.
Gallagher, who is originally from Reno, was a combat arms officer and a captain in the U.S. Army in Iraq in 2007. He told about the experiences in a blog he kept at the time, and then later in the memoir, “Kaboom.”
He’s now a contributor to the “At War” blog in The New York Times.
“Youngblood” is his first novel. And he’s says it’s not really a war novel, or not only that.
This interview is an abridged version of one that aired on our media partner KNPR in Las Vegas.