Formation: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line

by Ryan Leigh Dostie

Overview

Named by Esquire as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year: Chanel Miller's Know My Name meets Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Anthony Swofford's Jarhead in this powerful literary memoir of a young soldier driven to prove herself in a man's world.


Raised by powerful women in a restrictive, sheltered Christian community in New England, Ryan Dostie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But then a conversation with an Army recruiter in her high-school cafeteria changes the course of her life. Hired as a linguist, she quickly has to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks, and has been holding her own until the unthinkable happens: she is raped by a fellow soldier.


Struggling with PTSD and commanders who don't trust her story, Dostie finds herself fighting through the isolation of trauma amid the challenges of an unexpected war. What follows is a riveting story of one woman's extraordinary journey to prove her worth, physically and mentally, in a world where the odds are stacked against her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538731536
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	06/04/2019
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Ryan Leigh Dostie is a novelist turned soldier turned novelist. As an Army Persian-Farsi/Dari Linguist in Military Intelligence, she was deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom I and II (2003-2004). She holds an MFA in fiction writing and a bachelor's degree in History from Southern Connecticut State University. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband, her wondrously wild daughter, and one very large Alaskan Malamute. Formation is her first book.

Table of Contents

Violation

How It Happened 10

What They Want 23

Exodus 33

Quarters 39

Classical Conditioning 48

Spoliation of Evidence 52

Shock and Awe 56

The Last Push Before the End 66

Conception

In the Beginning 77

Event Horizon 88

Suck It the Fuck Up, Buttercup 95

Cry "Havoc" 109

Redacted 121

Welcome 125

JRTC 132

Consumption 140

Invasion

Entrenching 153

Indiscriminate 167

Filicide 179

Respite 190

The Way We're Trained 193

Uninspired 204

Ace of Hearts and Clubs 213

What Isn't Mine 217

Rage Against the Machine 229

Monster in a Box 234

The Way We Break 245

Reconstruction 252

Getting Out of Baghdad 257

The Ghosts of Al Kut 263

Two Miles Out 274

Desecration

Homecoming 279

Your Ending, My Beginning 286

Fight Me, Bitch 289

The Warworn's Battle Cry 294

Just Say the Word 305

Interim 308

Tub thumping 314

Belletristic 318

The Thing in My Vagina 323

Interim II 328

The Bat 331

Dirty Little Whore 335

The Breaking Point 341

Interim III 345

Closing 348

Acknowledgments 355

About the Author 359

Editorial Reviews

03/25/2019

In the sparse landscape of war memoirs by female soldiers, Dostie’s resolute, literary account of her five years in the army sets a benchmark. Raised in a New England Christian community, Dostie enlisted in the army in 2000 right out of high school. Promises made by recruiters of an easy basic training were crushed when Dostie realized women “are shiny and new and very much disliked” in army combat training. She studied languages and was steered toward Persian, or Farsi, one of the “weird languages”—until 9/11 made her “linguistically relevant.” Six months after posting to a predominantly male tactical unit at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in 2002, she was raped by another solder. Dostie reported the assault, trusting “father figures” in her chain of command to deliver justice, but her case was found to be unsubstantiated and she was ostracized by her peers. Deployment to Baghdad in 2003 provided the distraction of violence; armed with an M16, she discovered “Iraq is the perfect place for rage.” After leaving active duty in 2005, she grappled with PTSD until marriage and motherhood anchored her enough to “live in the interims” of sanity and push forward. Dostie writes powerfully in this raw, explosive memoir. Agent: Eve Attermann, WME. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A 2019 New England Book Awards Finalist


Longlisted for the 2019 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Awards



An Esquire Best Nonfiction Book of the Year


A Bustle 21 New Memoirs That Will Inspire, Motivate, and Captivate You This Summer


A BookRiot 50 of the Best Books to Read This Summer


A PureWow Books we Can't Wait to Read in June


A Patch.com 10 Best Books to Read in June

"Urgent and necessary."——Esquire

"Rape victims must yell, cry and fight, says the Army that trained us for years to be silent, strong and obedient."—New York Times

"FORMATION is a brilliant addition to the memoirs of war. With grounded and elegant prose Dostie narrates her harrowing journey into combat and through the violent quagmire of Military Sexual Trauma. We should all read this heroic and timely book."—Anthony Swofford, New York Times bestselling author of Jarhead

"Raw, explosive...Dostie writes powerfully...In the sparse landscape of war memoirs by female soldiers, Dostie's resolute, literary account of her five years in the army sets a benchmark."— Publishers Weekly

"Though I knew it would be urgent, compelling, and excellent from the first page, Formation was a much more expansive book than I even could have suspected: a riveting, enraging memoir from an author of remarkable toughness and emotional range. This is an unflinching and honest account of war, of homecoming, and of what happens when a woman reports an assault and the institutions around her try to smother the truth."—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment

"Formation grabs us by the collar and never relents, much like Dostie herself, whose path to independence gets paved with blood and sacrifice. Her gripping memoir lays bare the pain of proving yourself in a man's world, but also the rich rewards. Most of us will probably never go to war, but Dostie's story speaks to a daily struggle many of us face: the battle to believe in ourselves."—Sarah Hepola, New York Times bestselling author of Blackout

"An essential telling of one woman's account of training and combat: staggeringly beautiful, gutsy, and harrowing. Dostie has written the rare memoir that is destined to be a classic. I couldn't put this book down and I never wanted it to end."—Christa Parravani, bestselling author of Her: A Memoir

"This is a fierce memoir of survival-a visceral and vital portrait of what it takes to thrive as a woman in a man's world. Time is long overdue for the world to hear Ryan Leigh Dostie's remarkable story of resilience in the face of the unspeakable."—Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire

"Vital, brutal and absolutely compelling...A significant standout."—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness

"Here is the war memoir re-invented. Dostie offers a beautiful, soulful, and astonishingly fresh take on the war in Iraq, and a deeply original book. Formation should be a must read at West Point, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and all points in between."—Jake Halpern, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Paper

"Engaging...This powerful memoir explores issues of trauma, human rights, and the resilience needed to stand up for ourselves when everyone is trying to keep us quiet."—Inc.

"[An] unquestionably inspiring story traversing the personal and public battlefields of sexual assault in the armed forces...Each of these narratives deserves to be heard.—Kirkus

"What makes Formation more than a story of victimization is partly Dostie the soldier, a gritty protagonist we can root for. It's also partly Dostie the writer."—Daily Nutmeg

From the Publisher

Ryan Dostie pulls no punches in narrating her raw, mesmerizing memoir. She entered the army right after high school because it seemed to be the road to freedom for a young woman raised in a strict Christian community. What she discovered in her military experience was alcohol, and what followed was a rape that no one believed happened because she had had too much to drink at the time. She keeps her emotions in check when she speaks of her service in Iraq and the rape, but the tension in her voice suggests her subsequent struggles with PTSD. Dostie provides a compelling account of experiences that are all too common among women in our nation’s military. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Ryan Dostie pulls no punches in narrating her raw, mesmerizing memoir. She entered the army right after high school because it seemed to be the road to freedom for a young woman raised in a strict Christian community. What she discovered in her military experience was alcohol, and what followed was a rape that no one believed happened because she had had too much to drink at the time. She keeps her emotions in check when she speaks of her service in Iraq and the rape, but the tension in her voice suggests her subsequent struggles with PTSD. Dostie provides a compelling account of experiences that are all too common among women in our nation’s military. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile