One of the cool things that happened for me at RWA 10 this year in Orland was the 
opportunity to attend multiple publisher’s parties, courtesy of my agent. At NAL, I met Ellen Edwards, who sent me a review copy of Siobhan Fallon’s You Know When the Men are Gone. The whole conversation started when she discovered that I was stationed at Fort Hood, the setting for Ms Fallon’s novel and Ms Edwards asked if I’d like to read it.
True to her word, I received my copy about a week later and eagerly devoured it. I held off on posting about it until it was closer to the release time, so as not to talk about a book so far before it was available in print.
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t normally read about military wives. Even though technically, I’m a military wife myself, I’m much more inclined to read books about downrange. I’m more able to relate to the life of a soldier than a spouse for obvious reasons. But Ms Fallon’s book changed that for me and gave me a great insight into my roll as a commander and head of my own unit’s family readiness group.
From the outset, the characters are as real as they come. Many times, you can read a book and like the characters. From the first page, I felt like I was sitting in my husband’s FRG, like I knew women like this, flaws and all. And some of them, I did not like but I kept reading because I was curious. Why was this spouse so obsessed with her neighbor? Why was this woman so judgmental of this other officer’s wife? It was a fascinating character study in each story and the army, in and of itself, was a character.
This book was eye opening for me because it really pulled me into the life of mystery that some wives face. What I mean is that if you’re not familiar with the military, then every conversation you have almost has to occur with a translator because soldiers speak a different language. I had no idea how much easier my life is with my husband because we both speak the same language. When he says he has to pull staff duty, I know what that means. When I tell him I have to go to NTC, he knows what that means. Ms Fallon’s book painted in very real pictures how difficult it was and is for spouses to understand what is going on in their husband’s life and it gave me a starting point for understanding where some of these young wives who come to me for assistance are coming from.
Ms Fallon’s book made me cry. It was impossible not to feel the alienation, the sadness, the ever present sense of waiting that never goes away. And as the stories continued to unfold, the links between the stories became clearer, the emotion that much stronger. Some of my emotions were anger at her portrayal of female soldiers in one story. All of the spouses were fully developed characters but in the one story where a wife suspects her husband of infidelity, the suspected soldier is more of a boogey man than a character. I completely understand this angle but I still didn’t like it and I still kept reading because for that character and for many military wives, the specter of their husbands going downrange with ‘us’ the female soldier, is a cause for insecurity. I don’t have to like it to acknowledge that it is a real fear for so many.
Ms Fallon’s book comes out on January 20th and for anyone wondering what life is truly like for those left behind while their families go off to war, I highly recommend it. For me, facing my 3rd deployment as the spouse left at home, it is especially poignant because even though I wear the uniform, I will still be left standing in that gym when my husband slings his rifle over his shoulder and walks onto that bus, heading for the desert one more time.