Interview with Anthony Swofford, author of “Jarhead,” at Guernica Magazine
Notable quotes:
“He risked death in a sports car, collected girlfriends like baseball cards and flew them halfway around the world (sometimes bunking them in the same hotel, just a floor away from each other), dosed himself with drugs. ‘I thought about killing myself’ he writes, but in some ways he already was dead.”
“I wanted to obliterate myself because this thing some people called success meant nothing.”
“There is no reason to be tricky about what kind of ride you’re about to take a reader on. Not in a memoir.”
“ I wanted some war, I wanted some madness, I wanted to be a ripped up 20-year-old kid throwing fire downrange.”
“So my father gave me too much of himself, the wrong part of himself. And then, cursed with this knowledge, I went after him, I wanted to slay him, destroy him for his sins against my family.”
