Siobhan Fallon uses a series of linked stories to paint a picture of what families, both spouses and soldiers, endure during a deployment. As an Army wife, these stories seemed all too familiar to me. And in that respect, I enjoyed them very much. The familiarity was rather comforting. Having either gone through similar experiences or known someone who had, it was nice to know that I wasn’t alone.
However, as much as I liked the stories for their engaging plots, my only complaint lies with the stories’ characters. They were either stereotypical or exaggerated. From the “perfectly lipsticked” battalion commander’s wife to the paranoid, neurotic soldier who goes through some pretty extreme measures to check on his wife’s fidelity, none of them seemed fully developed.
I can overlook that, though, and recommend this to Army spouses and civilians alike because from the first page, Fallon captures almost perfectly that sense of emptiness on a military post when a unit deploys and the men are gone:
“Babies still cry, telephones ring, Saturday morning cartoons screech, but without the men, there is a sense of muted silence, a sense of muted life.”
And she had me there. Life goes on during a deployment, if a little slower than usual. ~ Linette
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