It's beautifully written, mixing blank verse and prose, but I'm not sure this novella really has anything new to say or express about a time and milieu that have been described MANY times before.

At least, that was how I felt until just over halfway through, when I reflected that publishing The Long Take now acts as a reminder of not just a war that most people today have no tangible memory of, but also how closely present issues mirror those of 70 years ago: PTSD, rampant construction, racism, homelessness, wildfires. Yes, it is still a book that retreads a lot of old ground about the aftermath of WWII and the Golden Age of Hollywood, but it demonstrates such elegiac creativity, such thoughtful composition, that it (just about) justifies its existence.

There are some glowing poetic tributes to nature, but what stuck with me most of all was the grotesque imagery (reminiscent of gallows humour) used to describe war:

"I saw a sudden pink puffball, which was Cargill's head being coughed apart."

"The tide coming in on a soldier impaled on a German tripod, his guts stringing out around him like a kilt."

"A panzer tank, brewed up inside, crew done like a Sunday roast."