The Tartar Steppe

"This book is all about Italians stationed on a remote Eurasian frontier. Of course they never were, but The Tartar Steppe is a metaphor for devoting your life to a higher good, for wanting to do public service and to make a difference. And you essentially give up everything. The main character, Giovanni Drogo, gives up his fiancée, his mother and his friends to wait for the Tartars who never come. There is this horrible fort where he lives, this daily grind and no sense of normal life. His life is wasted. I hear from the military over and over again how difficult it is to be in a deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan, where you are away from home for so much of the time. It was like that for me when I was in the CIA. You come back and people forget who you are. Yes, it gives them meaning in life. It is warfare. Of course, if you have to look at it from the point of view of the people you leave behind it is an act of betrayal. It is like, if you really care about us you would get a job here and stay home. And it is an act of betrayal. It is saying, “I don’t really need you people, because there is something more important.” That is the basic message. I had a bad marriage. People say, “Boy, aren’t you brave going to these places.” Well, that is not the whole truth. It is easy to run away. It is probably the easiest way to run away. So many people come to me and tell me tall stories about dads who worked for the CIA, and had to go away. But they never worked for the CIA – they had second families and ran away. I do public speaking and I see this myth repeatedly. If you are running away, you are lying to yourself that you are doing something important that justifies what you’ve done."