The Turkey War - Hardcover

Unger, Douglas

4

18 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060159510 ISBN 13: 9780060159511

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1988

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At a South Dakota turkey processing plant employing German prisoners of war, production sabotage finds the plant foreman and the German officer serving as warden in a deadly battle of wills

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From Publishers Weekly:

Set in a South Dakota turkey-processing plant manned by German POWs during WW II, this gritty novel pits workaholic plant foreman Mose Johnson against dignified ex-Africa Korps officer Hauptmann von Ujath, who commands total devotion from fellow prisoners. Unger, who explored this general locale in his first novel, Leaving the Land , clearly wants readers to see that not all Germans were Nazis and that POWs on U.S. soil were badly treated. But we never get to know these man well enough as individuals to feel much sympathy for them, despite Unger's graphic portrayal of the horrible milieu: impossible quotas leading to assembly-line speedups, bloody accidents and filthy working conditions. The novel's vantage point is certainly different, but Mose's earth-mother girlfriend, his moneybags boss Buster Hill and the ultimate outcome of the POWs work slowdown are predictable fare. Not for the squeamish, the story tells you everything you would ever think to ask about turkey raising and slaughtering.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

"A compelling novel about a principled, decent man destroyed by his milieu." -- New York Times Book Review

"A seldom-explored area of home-front history comes compellingly to life in this vital, keenly observant, compassionate work." -- Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 1988

"A taut tale of tragedy mixed with history and small-town life...packed with charm...reminding us of Steinbeck...four stars." -- Inside Books, January 1989

"Does for ... home-front America what The Grapes of Wrath did for the Depression. It makes it achingly familiar." -- The Dallas Morning News, January 15, 1989

"Unfaltering...The Turkey War is more than a good story." -- Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 25, 1988

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