As You Were

(Paperback)

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"A book that alternates between grim reality and ribald humor. The hard hits come fast. ... An incandescent addition to both Native American letters and the literature of the Iraq and Afghan wars." -Kirkus starred review

When he learns his father is dying, David Tromblay ponders what will become of the monsters legacy and picks up a pen to set the story straight.

In sharp and unflinching prose, he recounts his childhood bouncing between his father, who wrestles with anger, alcoholism, and a traumatic brain injury; his grandmother, who survived Indian boarding schools but mistook the corporal punishment she endured for proper child-rearing; and his mother, a part-time waitress, dancer, and locksmith, who hides from Davids father in church basements and the folded-down back seat of her car until winter forces her to abandon her son on his grandmothers doorstep.

For twelve years, he is beaten, burned, humiliated, locked in closets, lied to, molested, seen and not heard, until his talent for brutal violence meets and exceeds his fathers, granting him an escape.

Years later, David confronts the compounded traumas of his childhood, searching for the domino that fell and forced his family into the cycle of brutality and denial of their own identity.

Reviews

"A book that alternates between grim reality and ribald humor. The hard hits come fast. ... An incandescent addition to both Native American letters and the literature of the Iraq and Afghan wars." -Kirkus starred review "As You Were flows on a stream of consciousness, between childhood and adulthood, from the image of the author with a gun in his mouth back to the past experiences that would make him want to pull the trigger. ... Some books you read with a sense of wonder that the author survived to write them. Some books, by their very existence, suggest that writing can save your life. This is one of those books." -Minneapolis Star-Tribune Ugly, sad, tragic, and painfully funny. As You Were is how brutal and beautiful the truth is when it turns on you. BULL: Mens Magazine "Sit down into the passenger seat and don't worry about that sound coming from under the hood, or that shudder in the front end, or the rust under your feet. Just let David Tromblay's voice carry you, and close your eyes to listen if you wanthe's got the wheel, he knows where this is going." Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians In As You Were, David Tromblay stretches terrible sinew between the bones of wars fought with guns and fists and languagein the name of Country and love and familyin the home, on foreign land, and in the mind itself. This voice shirks at nothing. This voice tells the truth. This voice will ring in your head long after the final page. Terese Mailhot, author of Heart Berries: A Memoir "As You Were navigates a dark childhood and time served as both a sailor and soldier during our wars for oil with humor, grace and tight, gritty prose. Every chapters end left me turning the page fasteither teary-eyed or laughing but always holding my breath. I could not put it down." Toni Jensen, author of Carry "There is something both deep-reaching and visceral in the way this memoir ignites the readers; Tromblays memories read like were the ones re-experiencing our own repressed incidents. And he lets them come from anywhere, like shrapnel, waking us up to the true state of our collective American soul." Ismet Prcic, author of Shards

Author Bio

David Tromblay served in the U.S. Armed Forces for over a decade before attending the Institute of American Indian Arts for his MFA in Creative Writing. His essays and short stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Pank Magazine; Michigan Quarterly Review; RED INK: International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, & Humanities; The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature; Yellow Medicine Review; Open: Journal of Arts & Letters; Watershed Review; FIVE:2:ONE Magazine; and BULL: Men's Magazine. He currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his dogs, Bentley and Hank.