Michael Jerome Plunkett + Brandon Taylor: Zone Rouge

Join us for a pre-release event with writer and veteran Michael Jerome Plunkett, discussing his debut novel Zone Rouge. Joining Michael in conversation is critically acclaimed author Brandon Taylor. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA-compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by Aug. 14 to request.

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For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]

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We are démineurs. We dismantle bombs.

Ferrand Martin and his team of démineurs spend their days in the ruined fields of Zone Rouge on the periphery of modern-day Verdun, France, where they clean up the artillery and explosives used in World War I. One bullet, one bit of shrapnel, one bomb at a time. The work, they say, is not measured in days, months, or years, but in generations. It’s taken a century to get this far, and it will take many more centuries to complete.

One morning, a routine call to pick up a half-buried artillery shell turns out to be much more than just a single missile: they discover a human skeleton, fully intact. Ferrand and his fellow démineurs dig deep into poisoned soil to reveal the past is rarely ever distant from the present.

This startling discovery kicks off a series of events that sees the usually desolate Zone Rouge teem with activity as academics, politicians, and locals all wrangle over the legacy of the War and what it means to remember. Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our contemporary anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.

"In the way only the best anti-war literature does, Plunkett immerses us in the lasting consequences of humanity's old, ruinous lie..." –Matt Gallagher, author of DAYBREAK

Michael Jerome Plunkett is a writer from Long Island, a Marine Corps veteran, and former EMT. He is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Literature of War Foundation and host of The LitWar Podcast. His writing has appeared in The War Horse, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Leatherneck Magazine, and other publications. Zone Rouge is his debut novel.

Brandon Taylor is an Editor at Unnamed Press and co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. He is the author of Minor Black Figures, The Late Americans, Real Life, a finalist of the Booker Prize and the NBCC John Leonard Prize, and Filthy Animals, winner of The Story Prize and a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Cut, Vulture, and elsewhere.

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