War doesn’t just happen in the here and now. The effects ripple through time, causing untold havoc. Or if we’re lucky, some people tell their stories hopefully as some sort of catharsis. I’ve read some memoirs already from veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These stories seemed almost too fresh, as if they needed to age, look back, and reconsider it all over again. We don’t know what the impact will be on today’s veterans in 20 or 30 years. Comparisons have been made to Vietnam and if these wars are at all alike, we’re in for a lot of trouble. Last week, I read Danielle Trussoni’s memoir Falling Throught the Earth and wondered if I would be reading a similar story in 30 years. In her book she weaves together three stories: first, her early years as part of a dysfunctional family and then living with her hard-drinking father; second, her father’s experiences in Vietnam; and finally, her solo trip to Vietnam at age 24 to to try and understand her father’s experience.
Trussoni’s father arrived in Vietnam in 1968, during the Tet offensive. He immediately volunteered for a suicide mission that brings him hazardous duty pay—he becomes a tunnel rat. Returning from the war, forever changed, the trauma he endured takes its toll on him and his family. As the eldest of three kids, Danielle feels an special affinity with her father. She even creates a Dad code: “I told them that Dad’s annoyance meant he loved us more than words could express; his drinking meant he suffered more acutely than other people; his coldness was cover for intense feeling. I apologized for Dad and forgave him in advance. I interpreted Dad and spoke for Dad. I convinced myself that I was capable of this. And sometimes I was.” When her parents divorce, she goes to live with her father, while her two younger siblings go with her mother. Now she gives him an honest accounting. He comes across as a gruff, hard-nosed man, itching to fight, but occasionally you get a glimpse of the wounded man behind the tough exterior. He clearly was not ready to take care of a young daughter. She found herself spending lots of time on a bar stool at Roscoe’s, the local watering hole, listening to her father tell stories about Vietnam while getting drunk. A procession of women, many from the bar, move through the house, most for just one night. As a teenager, she has a revelation. “The similarities between Dad and me were striking. Dad’s personality had grown into me the way a strip of barbed wire grows into the bark of a tree…For the first time I realized I needed to untangle myself from him.” Soon, she moves back in with her mother.

By visiting Vietnam at 24, Danielle hopes to exorcise some of the demons left from her childhood, and perhaps some of her father’s as well. It’s as if she believes she can take on her father’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder so her father doesn’t have to. It took 30 years for the official diagnosis and only happened when her father needed to qualify for medical benefits. Reading this article in today’s NYT about the rage and grief the soldiers experience, I wondered again, will it take 30 years for some of these soldiers PSTD to be diagnosed and treated? Or have learned any lessons from Vietnam. Danielle and her family suffered their own version of Post Traumatic Stress. Again, the effects of war rippling outward. Perhaps with this spare, intense memoir, she can finally leave behind some of her father’s memories.

Intrigued by the idea of the 100 Mile Diet, I eagerly grabbed the galley of this book which details a Vancouverite couple’s year of eating locally. I like the idea, I really do, but I live in New England. If you plug in my zip code on their handy map which will give you your 100 mile boundaries, I saw that I might be in some trouble in winter. But this couple did it, almost ruining their relationship in the meanwhile, but still, they went a whole year. And they were very hardcore. No salt, sugar, whatever, unless is came from a local source.

As for the book, the subject matter is the most interesting aspect of the book. It’s broken up into months and Alisa and James alternate writing the chapters.  Their personal lives go through some tumult as Alisa deals with the loss of her grandmother and James tries to get to know his brother better. These parts, while adding some depth to the writers, detract in the end. I wanted to know more about how they persevered. How exactly did they can all those vegetables? I felt like I was getting fleeting glimpses into this diet, rather than the in depth perspective. It’s still an interesting read nonetheless. The chapter they spend in their cabin up North is particularly charming.

I felt rather dirty reading the climatic chapter of McEwan’s upcoming book on the subway last night. This novella recounts Edward and Florence on their first night together as man and wife in 1962. You might have read the first chapterin the New Yorker’s Fiction issue. It’s an odd, intimate book. McEwan carefully dissects this couples’ relationship. He goes almost minute by minute through their awkward honeymoon dinner to the bedroom and the aftermath. Woven into this narrative are flashbacks that help illustrate the complexities of the relationship.
What’s lovely about this novel is the way in which McEwan describes all of these details, letting the reader infer how the characters feel about one another. He also lets you see the class differences between Edward and Florence without it seeming like he’s deliberately pointing them out. At Florence’s family house, Edward is assigned what the family calls the “small room”. “The ‘small room’ was larger than any of the bedrooms at the Turville Heath cottage, and possibly larger than the its sitting room.” It’s too early for the sexual liberation to have reached them. The sexual oppression reaks havoc with their relationship in ways that they can’t even communicate. We the reader understand what each is feeling but they don’t have any idea or have the capability to talk about their nervousness. Edward worries about “arriving to soon” while Florence fears the whole act of sex. She’s even repulsed by French Kissing. Both believe that their love for one another can protect them. What’s remarkable about this book is that McEwan can paint such a wonderful portrait in such a short space. This book might be 176 pages, but it’s a smaller format hardcover—4 1/2″ x 7 1/4″. It’s truly a superb work.