Helpful Score: 4
You Know When The Men Are Gone is a beautifully written slender volume of short stories centering around the wives of deployed soldiers based at Ft. Hood, Texas. The stories are loosely related involving different families and different situations, but with a common thread running through each of them that highlights the emotional drain of having a spouse deployed in Iraq and away for a year.
Sometimes depressing, sometimes sad and occasionally humorous, all are written with the compassion and knowledge of someone who has been there. These are not war stories; there is no political agenda. It is a window into the lives of our military families, opened for a brief moment, giving us a glimpse of their world. Some have children, some do not, others are newly wed and barely know each other while others know each other only too well. All are moving tales and all will make you think.
I read this book quickly and then I wanted more. The author has a wonderful writing style with smoothly flowing words and quickly developed characters. It was easy to feel their emotions: loneliness, pain, obsession, suspicion, distrust. Many of the stories deal with infidelity and how difficult it is to be separated from a spouse.
Most of the stories are told from the point of view of the wives. Several are told by the men. Leave is one of the stories told by a husband who is suspicious that his wife is cheating on him. He plots and plans a way to find out the truth and carries his plan out as if it were a military mission. I found this one to be particularly haunting and powerful and am still thinking about it now. He gets his answers but we are left to wonder what he does with the information.
This is a wonderful book, a compelling look into the personal relationships of the men and women in the military, and I highly recommend it.
Sometimes depressing, sometimes sad and occasionally humorous, all are written with the compassion and knowledge of someone who has been there. These are not war stories; there is no political agenda. It is a window into the lives of our military families, opened for a brief moment, giving us a glimpse of their world. Some have children, some do not, others are newly wed and barely know each other while others know each other only too well. All are moving tales and all will make you think.
I read this book quickly and then I wanted more. The author has a wonderful writing style with smoothly flowing words and quickly developed characters. It was easy to feel their emotions: loneliness, pain, obsession, suspicion, distrust. Many of the stories deal with infidelity and how difficult it is to be separated from a spouse.
Most of the stories are told from the point of view of the wives. Several are told by the men. Leave is one of the stories told by a husband who is suspicious that his wife is cheating on him. He plots and plans a way to find out the truth and carries his plan out as if it were a military mission. I found this one to be particularly haunting and powerful and am still thinking about it now. He gets his answers but we are left to wonder what he does with the information.
This is a wonderful book, a compelling look into the personal relationships of the men and women in the military, and I highly recommend it.
A very entertaining read. Ms Fallon has written multiple stories about living life on a military base.
Although the stories are fiction, they do represent life on a military installation (in a matter of speaking). She has also managed to weave the characters from one or more stories into other stories, while maintaining the perspective of the story you are reading.
Her writing is based, somewhat, on her experiences of living on a military installation while her husband was deployed to Iraq.
I loved the manner in which she writes and I enjoyed all of the stories (minus one with a very weird storyline).
Well worth the time it takes to read.
Although the stories are fiction, they do represent life on a military installation (in a matter of speaking). She has also managed to weave the characters from one or more stories into other stories, while maintaining the perspective of the story you are reading.
Her writing is based, somewhat, on her experiences of living on a military installation while her husband was deployed to Iraq.
I loved the manner in which she writes and I enjoyed all of the stories (minus one with a very weird storyline).
Well worth the time it takes to read.
I was looking forward to reading this book, because we have been stationed in Ft. Hood, and also, my husband has been deployed many times. However, I was disappointed that the characters in the book mainly seem to only appear for one chapter. I wish that the author had developed the characters more. It seemed more like she wrote the outline for a possible TV show where each episode is centered on a different person. My husband, who also read the the book, said it felt like the first part of a trilogy, which he would read if it was published.
I was deeply touched by this book when I remembered the pain and uncertainty of being a military wife when my husband was deployed. The feeling of belonging to a group of wives experiencing the same fears and sharing their unique joys and challenges probably can't be understood by civilians. There is a depth of understanding of what people in the military and their families endure that I hope will resonate with those who enjoy the freedoms that are hard earned. No one wants war, especially those in the front lines. Many of my husband's West Point classmates didn't come home, and are forever deeply missed. We owe so much to those who sacrificed. I hope we never take for granted what they who serve and those who love them are doing for all of us.
This is a good account of lives of the people left behind during the war. I don't like fiction based books, but this was hard to put done; a very good read.
I was not as interested in this book as I wanted to be. There are eight short stories here, I read the first and was hesitant to continue. I read three more stories before I decided there was nothing to pull me, as a reader, into these stories. I only read four stories but I was not moved, informed,or drawn to them or anyone in them.
Very enjoyable, quick read about a topic I had not read about. I do not know anyone who has a loved one in the military so this was a fresh, interesting & sometimes painful look into their lives. Sometimes in between novels I like to read short stories & this one was ideal.
I was deeply touched by this book when I remembered the pain and uncertainty of being a military wife when my husband was deployed. The feeling of belonging to a group of wives experiencing the same fears and sharing their unique joys and challenges probably can't be understood by civilians. There is a depth of understanding of what people in the military and their families endure that I hope will resonate with those who enjoy the freedoms that are hard earned. No one wants war, especially those in the front lines. Many of my husband's West Point classmates didn't come home, and are forever deeply missed. We owe so much to those who serve and those who love them. I hope we never take their sacrifices for granted.
An oddly unique book - a series of short stories about several characters who watched the tight-rope walker between the twin towers in NYC in 1970. These stories are all linked in some way. This particular hardcover is signed by the author. Includes dust jacket.
