The Things We Do to Make It Home
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An emotionally charged story of passionate love, unfulfilled desire, and an American dream gone totally awry, Beverly Gologorsky's poignant, unadorned novel lays bare the destructive impact of the Vietnam War on the wives, lovers, and children of veterans. This haunting story of devotion and loss will speak to anyone who has suffered the effects of an unwinnable war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After a quick nod to Tim O'Brien, the title of this vivid, unsentimental Vietnam novel locates its center right at "home." Veterans--"Men in trailers, tents, trucks, cars.... Men in tattered coats, stained pants, worn fatigues...."--and their girlfriends, children and wives inhabit the troubled domestic spaces of Gologorsky's debut. The novel opens at a party in 1973, where a group of vets just back from battle try to reacclimate to civilian life. The festivities are thin disguise for the damage they have suffered, though, as their wives and girlfriends perceive immediately. The plot then skips ahead more than 20 years to examine the long-term effects of the war on the intertwined but unraveling lives of its American victims. One man has literally driven himself to death; two have abandoned their families to become street people; one is dying of
