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The Turkey War Harper & Row, Inc., New York, October, 1988. Ballantine Books edition, New York, January, 1991. Available at Amazon.com "A compelling novel about a principled, decent man destroyed by his milieu — in this case a turkey processing plant in World War II manned largely by German prisoners of war.... Overproduction turns the plant into a vivid Dickensian nightmare, and Johnson, trapped between integrity and acquiescence, takes to drink..... The story of Johnson's failure convincingly dramatizes large issues in a crescendo that leaves him baffled and broken.... Mr. Unger has had it both ways: he has written not only a grim study of capitalist profiteering and union-busting during World War II, but also a quasi-naturalistic parable about a good-hearted but very ordinary man finally driven to his knees by circumstances." "The novel is excellent.... Unger flips the usual P.O.W. story upside down." "The Turkey War does for one section of home-front America what The Grapes of Wrath did for the Depression. It makes it achingly familiar." "Unfaltering... The Turkey War is more than a good story: It is a documentary of American labor and political corruption, a war history that lives, and because it lives, brings insight." "A taut tale of tragedy mixed with history and small-town life. The Turkey War moves at a brisk pace, packed with charm and reminding us of Steinbeck." "Unger writes in an active voice that propels his readers into the slaughtering plant and into a piece of forgotten history." |