Fabulous Fiction Firsts #270

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 7:54pm by muffy

You Know When the Men are Gone * * brings to mind the final line in John Milton's (1608-74) sonnet On His Blindness : "They also serve who only stand and wait"; and is a powerful, unsentimental portrait of America at war on the domestic front.

This debut collection of 8 interconnected stories by Siobhan Fallon relate the experiences of Fort Hood (Texas) military wives who share a poignant vigil during which they raise children while waiting for their husbands to return.

In the audio, a winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award, narrator Cassandra Campbell packs each story with a unique emotional punch, capturing the loneliness, the waiting, the anxiety, boredom and sometimes resentment among the women.

The author lived at Fort Hood while her husband, an Army major, was deployed to Iraq for two tours of duty. She earned her MFA at the New School in New York City. Fallon lives with her family near the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.

When you leave Fort Hood, the sign above the gate warns, You've Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming . For the lingering effect of war on families, I liked Tim Farrington's Lizzie's War (2005).

And let's not forget the young who too, are asked to endure, I highly recommend Laura Harrington's Alice Bliss (2011), a coming-of-age story with wisdom and heart.

* * = Starred Reviews