This very funny, very bleak novella, "The Human War," is about the first hours of the 2003 war in Iraq, as experienced by a screwed-up kid in Ohio who feels the world is spinning out of his control. His reaction to the coming war? He drinks, has sex, goes to a strip club, he does anything that Youngstown, Ohio offers as human distraction--but this only makes his horror deepen. Noah Cicero's deadpan humor is reminiscent of Beckett, and "A Human War" is a blackly funny and deeply cruel look at the cold hearts of men. The novella is accompanied by two outstanding short stories, "The Doomed" and "Little Flowers," both dark, funny vignettes on the impossibility of human interaction: further examples of Noah Cicero's wicked talent. This is Noah Cicero's first book. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio.