Hapless Hack Covers War in Iraq in 'Last One In'

Published July 11, 2007 at 9:08 AM MST

The new satirical novel The Last One In by Nicholas Kulish chronicles the adventures of a most unlikely war correspondent — a New York gossip columnist whose editor sends him to the deserts of Iraq and the front lines of the Iraq war.

In the book, Jimmy Stephens is sent to cover the invasion in 2003 and embedded with a Marine unit. Told to bring goggles, he brings blue-tinted swimming goggles. The Marines call him "Aquaman."

For a few months in 2003, Kulish was embedded with a Marine squadron as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Even though he grew up in a military family, Kulish tells Melissa Block that he — like Jimmy Stephens — sometimes felt like a fish out of water.