US combat veteran and photographer JT Blatty journeyed to Ukraine in 2018 to capture oral history and portraits of Donbas volunteer soldiers. In frontline bunkers and Kyiv flats, her story began to blend with theirs in a universal bond of combat veterans, compelling her to stay as a new war began. (Memoir)
JT Blatty
JT Blatty is the author of Snapshots Sent Home: From Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine—A Memoir (Elva Resa, 2024). A US Army combat veteran and photographer, JT went to Ukraine in 2018, drawn by the familiarity of war and those who serve in wars. As she embedded with Ukrainian volunteer soldiers to document their stories, her story began to blend with theirs.
“ … a sweeping and illuminating account … powerful, engaging narrative … kaleidoscopic portrait of her experiences, and those of the people she meets and grows close with along the way. … Blatty shares her and their stories with immediacy, honesty, and depth. … a sense of place and people that is usually only arrived at by being there; the men and women who people this book are richly and vividly drawn, like characters in a good novel. … challenging, revelatory, and important … This book is a rare and moving testament to the ties that bind those who experience war and its ongoing, lasting effects.”
—Alexa Dilworth, former publishing director, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
“Through a series of dispatches, across several frontlines … Blatty weaves a wholly unique and timely account of life during wartime on Ukraine’s eastern front. … Under the blanket of slow terror … Blatty finds love on the other end of her camera lens, and perhaps, part of herself. …”
—James McGrath, former bureau chief, Gamma Presse
“Blatty’s unparalleled memoir gives readers a glimpse of … the universal truths of war and conflict …”
—Robert P. Ottone, author, The Vile Thing We Created and The Triangle
“… an intimate, finely-written memoir about the truths and realities shared by soldiers everywhere. … Blatty ruminates about the nature of comradeship, patriotism, longing, loss, life and death; memory and love. … this devastatingly moving book … should be read by anyone who cares about what we do on history’s battlefields, and about how we process what we have done afterwards. … will stay on in readers’ minds for a long time to come.”
—Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer, The New Yorker; author of Che Guevara and The Fall of Baghdad
“Vivid, bewildering, and brutally honest … There’s a cinematic quality to her writing that sears these episodes into your memory, and leaves you with a renewed appreciation of our common humanity.
—Marilyn Terrell, former chief researcher, National Geographic Traveler magazine