As Figs in Autumn: One Year in a Forever War

In this lyrical debut memoir, Bastomski chronicles his time in the Israel Defense Forces. Born and raised in California, Bastomski, who is Jewish, did not feel a powerful connection to Israel, and certainly not to combat—until his beloved cousin, an IDF veteran who was pursuing his college degree at Brown University, was struck and killed by a drunk driver. Searching for meaning in the senseless loss, Bastomski decided to follow his cousin’s footsteps and enlist in Machal, a pathway to IDF service for noncitizens. From there, the American philosophy major in his early 20s who had “never touched a gun” traveled to Israel, learned Hebrew, and trained as a sharpshooter. Bastomski meticulously recounts the minutiae of everyday military life, lingering over semantic differences in uniforms as often as breathless moments of fear or triumph in training. These memories are rendered in elegant prose that elevates even moments of absurdity, such as the recruit who farts at his superiors, or the indignity of having a shelf of ammunition dropped on one’s toe: “At the sight of it, I stopped thrashing, and like a trapped gazelle I laid my neck down—today there would be no more running,” Bastomski writes of the resulting injury. The result is a lyrical and elegaic portrait of a young man coming-of-age as he learns the art of war. (July)