Shelf Life: Mike Sager’s Wounded Warriors

GENRE: Collected nonfiction of a gonzo journalist

PROFILED PERSONAS: Wounded Iraq War vets, junkie musicians, L.A. gang members, high I.Q. misanthropes, Hawaiian meth-heads, Vietnam vets living in Thailand, a few maligned celebrities, and an elusive Marlon Brando

BOLD PRINT: Sager’s essays have been published in the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, and many other discerning publications. His writing inspired the films Boogie Nights and Wonderland. He even interned for Creative Loafing back in the ’70s.

CENTRAL METAPHOR: Though the essay “Wounded Warriors” is about a group of Iraq War vets, the title is an apt description for any of the conflicted addicts and wayward personalities among the pages.

A 680-POUND MAN SAYS: “I’ve always been fat. I don’t even know what it’s like to be thin. It’s like being born blind — you have no idea what sight is.”

AN IRAQ WAR VET FROM GEORGIA REMEMBERS: “I woke up on the ground. I was like, Shit. I felt like I’d got hit by a damn fucking truck. There was blood everywhere. My neck was ripped open. See here on my neck? My little happy face made out of scars? It wasn’t that happy at the time.”

A JUNKIE IN MANHATTAN ADMITS: “I hate to admit it, but dope is the best thing in the world. I swear to God, it’s like cheating death. I’m a thrill seeker, I guess.”

WOMEN SAY: Almost nothing in the entire book. Despite Sager’s over-the-top efforts to travel to remote locales and immerse with subjects, it seems that women have proven too hard to reach for his journalistic efforts.

MARLON BRANDO SAYS: Nothing either. Sager chases Brando around Tahiti without managing to get a single quote. Sager’s hunt for Brando becomes, instead, an adventure in profiling himself.

HYPE QUOTE FROM THE COVER: “This collection of pieces from Mike Sager is just brilliant — brave, written with soul and beauty, and unflinching in the depiction of a real America that needs to be revealed,” Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights.

Wounded Warriors by Mike Sager. Da Capo Press. $16.95. 288 pp.