Torture tree
(Book)

From the publisher. If a life is made of moments, it is the tiny tragedies that memorialize. History is likewise marked by flares of consequence. In Bayard Godsave's pair of novellas, these fleeting instances perpetuate American ideology in far-flung places and distant points in time. For the inhabiting characters of "Torture Tree" and "White Man in Hammersmith"-the Revolutionary War soldier immortalized through his gruesome death; the earnest medical volunteer kidnapped in Iraq; and the unwitting expat-backer of a violent island coup-the political is personal. In this riveting follow-up to Lesser Apocalypses, bursts of violence seize onto and cleave their legacy into moments that might otherwise have been lost to a gloriously inconsequential past.