A
debut novel by Elizabeth Marro seeks to convey the damages of war
through fiction, this time from the fresh perspective of a soldier’s
mother.
CASUALTIES (Berkley; February 2, 2016) reverberates with the timely and powerful themes of war, PTSD, and social responsibility that have made Phil Klay’s
Redeployment, Roxana Robinson’s Sparta, and Billy Lynn’s Long Half-time Walk so resonant. It is a heartbreaking and insightful look at the wars we fight overseas, at home, and within our own hearts.
What it’s about:
When
her son returns home from Iraq, Ruth Nolan, an executive for a
successful military defense contractor, feels it’s a chance to start
over and mend their relationship. But an emergency at the office leads
to a canceled lunch date, the last chapter in a series of missed
connections between Ruth and the son she holds fiercely close. The next
morning Robbie is found dead in a motel bathtub, leaving behind a tidy
room and a note that says “I’m sorry for everything.
It’s not your fault. I love you.” Without a backward glance, Ruth packs
up Robbie’s ashes and drives east. Her grief is also complicated by her
involvement in an industry that profits from war, and the heartbreaking
revelation that the business she helped
build was withholding life insurance payouts from military families.
Why you’ll care:
Marro
explores the challenging terrain of mother-child relationships, marked
as they are with hopes, missed opportunities, regrets, and in the end,
the need for release and acceptance. As a civilian exploring
the world of the military and defense industries, she often felt like
she “did not have a right to go there.” But in piecing together Ruth’s
story, Marro was forced to move past that feeling of “otherness,” and
succeeds in offering a fresh perspective on the
challenge of moving forward—even when you are a casualty of
circumstances. CASUALTIES was a finalist for the 2014 San Diego Book Awards Association Contest under the category
of unpublished novel.