Draft:John Dolan
- Full Bio
- Books & Research
From the late 1990s, Dolan wrote for and co-edited the eXile, a satirical Moscow-based newspaper. In 2002, he started writing the War Nerd column under the pseudonym Gary Brecher, a character imagined as a smart, unhappy data-entry clerk in Fresno. After the Kremlin shut the eXile down, Dolan was a regular contributor to NSFW Corp and Pando Daily.
He has published several books including Pleasant Hell, The War Nerd, The War Nerd Iliad, and Erdogan Pizza.
Since 2015 he has co-hosted the podcast Radio War Nerd and also writes the podcast’s subscriber newsletter.We recognize the names: Achilles, Odysseus, Zeus, and Apollo. We’re taught that The Iliad is a foundational text of civilization. Until now, The Iliad was hijacked by academics and used to bludgeon schoolchildren as a boring-yet-mandatory reading.
Poet, novelist, essayist, and former teacher John Dolan revisits this ancient tale and restores it to its ancient glory. The Greeks and Trojans are still fighting. The gods are still interfering. But in Dolan’s version, you’ll be amazed at how funny, raw, and terrifying this doomed world of war really is. He strips away at the archaic language to reveal the true meaning and themes that animate this tale of war and futility.
John Dolan’s work under the nom de guerre “Gary Brecher” The War Nerd has been met with both acclaim and controversy. Dolan’s version of The Iliad is sapped of the usual saccharine romance attributed to “heroes” and lets the action tell the story. Regardless of attributed name, Dolan/Brecher is an astute observer of modern warfare who now turns that keen analysis to the most classical of documented battles, The Iliad.To the Crows is a selection of essays that engages on a deeply intimate level with the dark side of recent American culture and history. Sparing nobody, especially not himself, Dolan describes his relationship to NATO, Reagan, and neoliberal meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The book’s title is a translation of an ancient Greek expression that roughly translates as ‘Go to Hell!’ It’s also an echo of and tribute to Ted Hughes’ amoral Crow (Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow). The essays are representative of Dolan’s unique voice, a mix of comedy, elegy, and excoriation, which in their essence mimic the impassioned caw of a crow.