A poignant interpretation of the effect of war on human beings. Haslam’s collection of interconnected short stories is horrible in its fascination and so intense as to be actually painful to the reader. “You Forgot About Me” is a series of impressionistic descriptions, vivid, poetic, and realistic. Unraveling over six months near the end of World War II, disillusionment and an almost morbid sympathy with mental and physical suffering are outstanding features of the book.In “Yellow Jackets,” Captain Watt is too complex to be able to adjust his psychology to the simple business of human slaughter. He hates, more than the enemy, the spirit of inhumanity.The third and fourth vignettes of the book, “You Forgot About Me” and “My Scribbled Leaves,” are agonized studies in battle fatigue and mental pathology. The reader hears the ravings of officers who have become insane as a result of the suffering they have witnessed.Dedicated to the men that fought in The Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the five stories collected in “You Forgot About Me” do not discount the varying motives that lead to war, but instead each story is centered on a specific event or circumstance that dissect the depths of the emotional torture brought on by war.
