In this Wall Street Journal "Fiction Chronicle" column surveying a wave of new novels by veterans of the war on terror, critics examine Elliot Ackerman's debut novel, "Green on Blue," which imagines Afghanistan's war against the Taliban from the perspective of an Afghan soldier rather than an American one.

Aziz's War: Revenge, Not Cause

The review follows Aziz Iqtbal, who joins a U.S.-funded Afghan militia, the Special Lashkar, after his brother is gravely wounded in a bombing, fighting less for any larger cause than for badal, or revenge, in a novel the column credits with capturing how fractured and personal Afghanistan's war can be.

A Racket Called War

The column highlights Ackerman's portrayal of Commander Sabir, whose militia profits from prolonging the very conflict it is funded to fight, and quotes Aziz's own blunt verdict on the war he finds himself part of: "Our war was a racket."

Part of a Wider Wave of War Fiction

The review situates "Green on Blue" within a broader surge of fiction by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, weighing its journalistic clarity about Afghanistan's competing loyalties against novels that reach for a more visceral intensity, while crediting Ackerman's battlefield experience for grounding the book's portrait of a war fought by many, for many different reasons.

Read the Full Column

This review originally appeared as part of a Fiction Chronicle column in The Wall Street Journal, which also covered novels by Ross Ritchell and Mark Doten.

Read “Fiction Chronicle: The Soldier’s Story” at The Wall Street Journal →