Just Jennifer

 

You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (Amy Einhorn Books, January 2011)

In eight short stories, connected through families at Fort Hood, Texas, Siobhan Fallon explores soldiers being deployed, deployed and returning home from deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan and the effects it has on the soldiers and the families they leave behind.  Trying to fit in as a military wife, suspected infidelity, home and at war, cancer, relationships, children and the death of a spouse are all explored with sensitivity and grace, making the reader part of the story, not left feeling as if they were looking in on something.  Fallon doesn’t leave any emotion out:  loneliness, sadness, frustration, anger or despair; she writes with such intimacy that the reader becomes a part of Meg, David Mogeson or Carla’s world for a short time.  Life in the military, especially for civilian wives, is largely unknown to the rest of us.  New fiction author Siobhan Fallon gives us a glimpse into this unknown world and we leave a bit in awe of these men and women.