Remedial Action: A Novel

When he’s approached by a recruiter at a boxing tournament, troubled teenager Charlie Dale sees an opportunity. By enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, he can leave his unhappy childhood behind, transform himself wholesale, and finally find a place to belong. Stationed at a remote base in the Mojave Desert, he soon finds hard training and vicious hazing, brotherhood and a future. But when a single mistake means his unit deploys to Afghanistan without him, Charlie is cast adrift. How will he rebuild his life in the shadow of a war?

Drawing on the author’s experience as a Marine Corps infantry officer, Remedial Action interrogates the myths we tell ourselves about military service through the lens of one young man’s coming of age. Most war stories focus on how servicemembers change; Remedial Action instead asks what parts of them endure.