Caring Is Creepy

Praise for David Zimmerman's debut novel The Sandbox:

"Zimmerman is a talent to watch." - Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

"Gripping first novel… That every question in this novel interrogates every other is one of its great strengths and will keep you turning the pages of its short chapters, as each weaves the insistent first-person mystery of 'Why me?' with the larger mystery of 'What are we doing here?'…. A strong debut." -New York Times Book Review

"An unflinching, relentlessly gory tale." -Atlanta Magazine

"Zimmerman's talents are formidable and deserve your attention." -Dallas Morning News

"Zimmerman adroitly depicts [Iraq’s] isolated moonscape — a place as liable to produce hallucinations and heat exhaustion as it is to churn up sandstorms that last for days… Even better is Zimmerman's grasp of grunt speak — the enlisted man's vulgar poetry — whose inspirations are boredom, machismo, anger and homoerotic humor. It's the language of Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead, the type of discourse that flirts with nihilism, as if each joke is a competition to see who will get closer to the abyss of reason. The result is some extraordinary conversation, particularly the chapter (the best parts are unprintable here), in which Zimmerman, in only 2 1/2 pages, covers the addiction of war, the banality of phrases like 'support the troops' and what makes some veterans unable to return to normality in civilian life… this book's most searing episodes take place in the minds of these men, in their raging speech and sleepless nights." -Los Angeles Times

"This fine first novel skillfully portrays both the eternal verities of war as well as the stark differences that each war imposes on the young who do the fighting; like many war novels, it powerfully conveys the message that young soldiers are more honorable than those who put them in harm’s way." -Booklist