Along the Watchtower
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Live from Medicine Park, a powerful coming-of-age novel.
Set against the closing years of the Cold War, Constance Squires's debut novel introduces the family of Army Major Collins, as told through the eyes of Lucinda Collins-the vibrant, headstrong eldest daughter. Living on a military base, Lucinda feels displaced and isolated. Over time she finds her own tribe through rock and roll, and meets fellow Army brats, GIs, a ghost, and Syd, who knows how it goes. But after her father's final shocking betrayal, the only world she's ever believed in falls in like the Berlin Wall, leaving Lucinda to chart a new path.
In spare, heart-wrenchingly beautiful prose, Squires offers us a rare glimpse into the experiences and sacrifices of an American military family. Along the Watchtower is a powerful story that reveals what it really means to fight for the things we believe in and to defend the ones we love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Squires's somber debut details the coming-of-age of Lucinda Collins, an adolescent army brat growing up in Germany in the '80s. Her family revolves around her father, Major Jack, who runs his house according to the Army's zero defect policy. To him, rules exist so that "stupid people don't wander around lost," and illness including Lucinda's epilepsy is weakness. Though she's never seen it, land owned by the family in Shiloh, Tex., is the only constant in a childhood filled with loneliness and fleeting friendships. The major's selfishness and a wandering eye eventually tear the family apart; Lucinda's role as messenger and mediator also causes her relationship with her mother to suffer. She soon realizes that she can only rely on herself. Much remains unrealized in Squires's often evocative novel, from Lucinda's conflict with her father to her dreams of home, and the best moments come from brief encounters with uniformed men: a Nazi ghost, a neighbor suffering PTSD, a young soldier who shares her budding love of music, and a teenage boy who appears at critical junctures, pushing Lucinda to make personal her abstract philosophies, on war, the military, and herself.
