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    And West is West
    And West is West
    And West is West
    Audiobook10 hours

    And West is West

    Written by Ron Childress

    Narrated by Graham Halstead

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Winner of the prestigious PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, And West Is West is an inspired novel about the devastating power of new technology to corrupt innocent lives. When Jessica, a young Air Force drone pilot in Nevada, is tasked with launching a missile against a suspected terrorist halfway across the world, she realizes that though women and children are in the crosshairs of her screen, she has no choice but to follow orders. Ethan, a young Wall Street quant, is involved in more bloodless connection to war when he develops an algorithm that enables his company's clients to profit by exploiting the international instability caused by exactly this kind of antiterrorist strike. Though only minor players, the actions of these two people have global ramifications that tear lives apart-including their own. When Jessica finds herself discharged from the service, and Ethan makes an error that costs him his job, both are set adrift, cast out by a corrupt system and forced to take the blame for decisions that they did not make.

    In And West Is West, Childress has crafted a terrifyingly real scenario that takes readers into the lives of these characters living in different worlds yet bound together by forces beyond their control. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781622318803
    And West is West

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    Reviews for And West is West

    4/5

    17 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Two parallel narratives don't come together until the very end, but both follow interesting characters facing the biggest challenges of their lives. Ethan is a financial whiz kid on Wall Street who has no qualms about the computer code he wrote that allows his employer to pile up more and more money at the expense of the less fortunate, until he loses his job and his girl and becomes one of the less fortunate himself. Across the country in Nevada, Jessica is a military drone pilot who takes the fall for a commanding officer's mistake. Being forcibly separated from the service she loves sends her into her own emotional tailspin.What the two have in a common, besides the somewhat contrived aspect revealed toward the end of the book, is that both gave their all to an entity that did not appreciate or nurture their humanity, and each has to find their own way back to being at peace with themselves.
    • 4/5
      And West is West is an interesting, serious, well-written, thought-provoking novel. 2 main characters facing separate troubling situations in their lives are followed in their respective searches for meaning and redemption.

      Jessica, the more sympathetic character of the 2, was a 'drone pilot' who was involved in a strike that didn't turn out perfectly, ends up getting separated from the service, and walks out of a medical facility where she's being evaluated to lose herself and the rest of the world. Ethan is a financial 'quant' whiz who loses his job due to what he thinks was sabotage by his boss, at the same time his complicated romantic life becomes much sadder and more complicated.

      Although it sometimes feels like you're reading 2 individual novels, intertwined, the characters do intersect (you get some hints along the way). I thought the writing was excellent, the stories were well crafted, the characters were developed nicely (although 2/3 of them I didn't really care for....), the dialogue was fine and the conclusion was satisfactory.

      All told, it's a fine novel about how people respond to big changes in their lives. Nicely done, not upbeat by any means but definitely worthwhile reading.