The Western Contingent

Anderson-s debut novel introduces readers to a writer of lucid, hallucinatory prose worthy of comparison with Roberto Bola-o, Cormac McCarthy, and Jos-aramago

Loosely based on events that occurred during the Chinese Civil War, The Western Contingent follows a group of forty-eight young men who unexpectedly find themselves recruited for a mysterious mission deemed vital to their country-s future prosperity.

After undergoing a brief period of training and indoctrination, the peasants-turned-soldiers leave their hometown of Luan hungry for their first taste of combat. Doubt, however, soon sets in. Their colonel shows signs of mental instability, the people they-re supposedly fighting for treat them with indifference, and the purpose of their mission, as they continue marching west, only becomes more and more unclear. Anderson-s debut novel introduces readers to a writer of lucid, hallucinatory prose worthy of comparison with Roberto Bola-o, Cormac McCarthy, and Jo