In 2006, Whitney Terrell experienced the conflict in Iraq first-hand as an embedded reporter — and wrote about it for NPR, Slate, and The Washington Post.
Terrell's third novel, "The Good Lieutenant" is set in Iraq, with a focus on two main characters: signals officer Dixon Pulowski and First Lieutenant Emma Fowler.
"The opening is this very, very unpleasant and upsetting IED attack that they get in, which has disastrous consequences for both of them," says Terrell, an assistant professor in the Creative Writing program at UMKC.
"And the rest of the book is sort of telling the story of how they got there."
For our series WORD, Terrell reads an excerpt from "The Good Lieutenant." It's under contract at Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
All of our WORD readings, including bonus tracks by some poets, are archived on SoundCloud.
