You Know When The Men Are Gone - Siobhan Fallon
I recently read You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon. It's a beautifully written collection of short fictional stories that relay the very real experience of being a military spouse. Each story tells a different perspective of the unique experience of being married to the military. Her characters, both male and female, are identifiably true to their motivations, their sense of duty, their calling as 'military', and sometimes being thrust into this life, not knowing the full consequences. She personlises the experience of war, both for the soldiers she so clearly loves and their spouses, and doesn't judge any of them along the way. She explains the motivations of her characters for behaving the way that they do, some wives leave their husbands, some cheat, some wait in desperate lonliness, some lose a sense of themselves... one loses everything.
I read this collection over 2 nights, in about 6 hours. I couldn't put it down, I re-read lines, knowing that the writer has lived through this experience of deployment, agreeing with her insights, identifying with her characters and most of all, loving her soldiers. They put everything on the line when they do their duty for their country, it's one that really tests their relationships and sometimes a failure or shortness of character can come from either side. We all struggle when pushed to our limits, and the reality of war can sometimes get too much. Fallon's creations withstand these tests, but not always the way Hollywood tells the story. This is what I really loved about these vignettes of a life not fully understood by the wider community. The realism in these stories tells of struggles with character, morality and the tough choices we all have to make in a life wrought with pain and suffering... but also with the pride that we're a part of something bigger than just ourselves. That together, we make up the portion of society, who will go there, who will rise to the challenge and complete the tasks that the everyone else asks and expects of us.
"She carried her worry night and day. It pulled at her legs and shoulders and tear ducts, always there and ready to consume her, because how could anyone think rationally about a spouse in a war zone? And when Jeremy, late at night those few weeks before he left, had cupped her body against his, kissing her belly and longing to fill it up with his child, she'd thought only of the worry already growing there. She wondered if her belly could carry a life as well, if there was space for both and if the worry would form a stone pillow for her baby's head."
This is not a book for the light hearted. Reading this will make you squimish, want to look away and nervous. You will probably cry, hold your breathe, and silently be thankful that this isn't you. For those of us who've done it, and lived to tell the tale... it's full of heartbreakingly close recreations and humanity as we see it, at it's worst and at it's best. I was transported, instantly to the not too distant past. I realised just how raw these emotions and this experience still is for me, and just how important it is to share it. I realised that the guilt, the fear and sometimes even the numbness we create for ourselves is felt by others who go on this adventure - one that I wouldn't change and that I would certainly go through again.
Thank you Siobhan, for telling our stories with such accuracy, as only one whose gone through the experience can. It was wonderful to read my emotions on paper, through the lens of another character, not quite myself, but with the same emotions. Most of all, thank you to the soldiers, who risk their relationships, their humanity, and their lives in our service. We are truly in debt to you all.
