Mark Rubinstein

ABOUT THE BOOK

Right after college graduation, Costa, a lower-middle-class kid from Buffalo, New York, is drafted into the US Army and plunged into the jungles of Vietnam. Costa’s War catapults the reader back to the conflict that changed America.

Costa’s War is a searing novel of morality—choosing between right or wrong in a split second in the hell of the jungle—when it really matters, regardless of rank, military orders, or rule books. It asks how a soldier survives, how he deals with dislocation, and how he reacts when given an order that defies everything he’s ever believed about the human soul. 

Costa’s War expands upon Rubinstein’s award-winning novella The Foot Soldier, which received a Silver Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Rubinstein is an award-winning author, former forensic psychiatrist, and U.S. Army veteran. After earning a degree in business administration from NYU, he served in the U.S. Army as a field medic caring for paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division. Following his military service, he returned to school, earned his medical degree, and became a psychiatrist.

Rubinstein went on to practice forensic psychiatry, serving as an expert witness in numerous trials. He was also an attending psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Cornell, where he taught psychiatric residents, psychologists, and social workers while maintaining his psychiatric practice.

Mark Rubinstein is the author or co-author of 26 books, both fiction and non-fiction. His novella The Foot Soldier won a Silver Benjamin Franklin Award, Return to Sandara received a Gold IPPY Award for Suspense/Fiction, and The Lovers’ Tango won a Gold Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction. His most recent works include A Lethal Question, Peril on West Tenth, and Costa’s War.

TALKING POINTS

• How Rubinstein’s own experience as a U.S. Army field medic informed his understanding of military life
• How his career as a psychiatrist shaped his approach to characters facing fear, moral conflict, and extreme pressure
• The complicated social dynamics among soldiers who are forced to depend on people they might never have chosen to associate with in civilian life
• How Costa learns to read the emotions, motives, and potential threats of the soldiers around him
• How quickly ordinary social rules and boundaries can break down under extreme conditions
• The psychology of power and resentment within military hierarchies
• How the jungle itself becomes a psychological adversary—not simply a backdrop for combat
• The cumulative effect of discomfort, fear, exhaustion, disgust, and constant vigilance on a soldier’s state of mind
• The struggle to preserve humanity and a sense of self in combat
• What happens when survival comes into conflict with a soldier’s moral compass

TIMELY TIE-INS

October

• National Book Month
• National Storytelling Day – 5
• National Day of the Deployed – 26

November

• National Veterans and Military Families Month
• National Novel Writing Month
• Veterans Day – 11 

December

• Wreaths Across America Day – 19