Hanging Fields Author:Steven Maxwell The soldier is home. Back from the desert with a brutal secret. Life collapsing. Mind unravelling. Family afraid of him. Menacing calls and texts say they know what he did. Stalking cars threaten worse. Buried in a sadistic world of dog fighting and military drugs, cult abuse and execution videos, he's engulfed in a paranoid rage so intense it ... more »endangers those around him. Yet why do those around him pose greater danger?
Hanging Fields is a fierce and shocking account of lost souls in a violent working-class town where, for some, cruelty and betrayal are the only means of survival.
Steven Maxwell has created a British masterpiece in the world of unemployed hoodlums, single mothers, and returning war vets. Haunted by a society that rejects them and finding solace in a world of online snuff videos, video games, and the constant hum of horror videos and real life crime news stories, two half brothers try desperately to regain some sense of control over their lives. Unable to deal with the many layers of despair coating the bottom of British society, both brothers careen towards each other as they try to find something to believe in and something to hold on to, something which turns out to be their mutual hatred for each other.
Reminiscent of classic youth-gone-wild teensploitation stories from the early '60s, Maxwell deftly relocates the desperate downward spirals of those archetypal young men into today's world of ubiquitous cell phones and near-constant texting, creating a timeless tragedy for today.« less