Last Flag Flying: A Novel
Series: The Last Detail, Book 2
By: Darryl Ponicsan / Narrated By: Bronson Pinchot
Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
Not as grand as Book 1, but a solidly good listen… UNLESS you think W.Bush/D.Cheney are American heroes… in which case, steer waaaaay clear !
First, let me apologize for my review of The Last Detail that had me soooo delighted that I was looking forward, oh so glibly, to Memorial Day 2021. One should NEVER be happy to approach the Day with anything but a sort of solemnity. My apologies…
…and now onto the review of Last Flag Flying which I had to start over because my first Listen had me a trifle disappointed and, dare I say it: Bored?
Billy Bad-Ass is still alive! Nooooo, he did NOT die in the brawl that seemingly killed him at the end of Book 1; he now lives near his old Naval stomping grounds, running a down and out bar that caters mostly to regulars, and to the odd stateside seaman here and there. It’s a total dive, and the story opens with The Kid coming to the bar, suit bag slung over his shoulder. Billy is thrilled to see The Kid survived his 8-year stint in prison, and after getting The Kid drunk again, he’s up for giving him a ride to where The Kid wants to go.
It’s to a church… and Billy does NOT do churches…! But once inside, listening to an emphatic preacher, it starts dawning on Billy: This preacher is actually Mule Mulhall. Mule, who was devastated by Billy’s death, sought God after his Bad Conduct Discharge. He’s now somewhat crippled, married to a good woman, and he’s most DEFinitely altered. He absolutely refuses to go on a road trip The Kid asks that the three of them make.
-But- it turns out The Kid hasn’t any friends, and right now? He truly needs them: He’s off to claim the body of his son, Larry Jr. who was a Marine killed in Iraq. Because Larry Jr. died heroically, he’s eligible to be buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The Kid is destroyed by his only child’s death, but he’s buoyed by the thought of his son’s heroism.
Mule STILL doesn’t wanna go, but his wife deMANds that he go, if only to keep Billy Bad-Ass from tainting The Kid’s virtue. Mule grumblingly agrees, and it’s off to somberly retrieve the body of Larry Jr. And it’s here that one Lance Cpl. Washington tells Billy, very quietly, that Larry Jr. was actually shot in the back of the head when he went into an Iraqi store to get his crew some cold drinks. It wasn’t even his turn to get the drinks, and Larry Jr. didn’t take his gun with him, and this makes Washington adamant that Larry Jr. messed up. NATurally Billy tells The Kid this only to see the devastated father even MORE devastated. Enraged, The Kid (Whom I’ll switch now to calling Meadows) howls his grief and says screw the fine funeral, he’s taking his son home to Portsmouth to be buried next to the boy’s mother.
And so the three are on a new journey, this time with a body in tow, to get Larry Jr. home. Along the way, we learn that Larry Jr. was out delivering school supplies to kids when he was murdered. Why, shouts Meadows, couldn’t he have been delivering supplies to schools in New Hampshire, where they’re so desperately needed?
In fact, the witty banter that made The Last Detail so awesome is very much not on display here; each of the characters are instead musing or crying out about the injustice of the war, of the fat cats who are getting rich off it, of how it’s mass slaughter for the sake of corporations. Don’t get me wrong; I was livid when we went into Iraq, full-well aware that Cheney’s Halliburton cronies would be getting the oil contracts. And when I discovered KBR was run by Halliburton, with the Burn Pits and all, with the soldiers getting electrocuted in faulty showers? Oh GOD was I sick!
Even so, even I found this to be a LOT of shrieking, and dude, I AGREE with it. Instead of the rapid-fire back and forth between Billy and Mule, instead of the innocent musings of Meadows, we have jaded old guys and a newly-turned-cynical Meadows oft cries of: Injustice! Slaughtered Innocents! Greed, Greed, GREED!
The focus is mainly on Billy, tho’ we are indeed treated to the inside of each of the characters’ minds, thoughts. But it’s mostly the Billy Show which, I admit, shrieking diatribes aside, is pretty gosh-darned funny and profane.
Handling this all is, once again fanTAStic, Bronson Pinchot. Do speed this up a bit as, while Billy does indeed start to wonder if Meadows might have a few intellectual delays, Meadows is NOT stupid but is, rather, naive. Pinchot reads Meadows’s lines soooo slowly, this isn’t immediately clear. But that aside, Pinchot carries the day with his sometimes mad-as-hell, but always wry performance of not only the three characters, but also of the many side-characters as well. Washington joins the trio as he’s drawn escort duty (It’s either that or back to Baghdad, but he’d do it anyway as Larry Jr. was his best friend), and we get a view of the mindset of somebody who’s doing the actual fighting and dying in the Global War on Terror. Pinchot manages his voice, a Black young man who’s very afraid of being killed, distinctly from his voice for Mule, a Black now-preacher who’s finding a lot to be bitter about. This is amazing from the very white Bronson Pinchot who doesn’t play up stereotypes at all. From Billy Bad-Ass, to Mule, to Meadows, each is so very distinct.
All in all, I’m sooo very glad I gave this a second listen, getting past my initial doubts about author Darryl Ponicsan regarding how each character grew, the choices they made in the 34-years in between sojourns. Life takes its toll on these characters.
But isn’t that the way of it for all of us?
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.