Failure to communicate: Army wife’s collection heavy on stereotypes, short on joy - Entertainment, Books - Air Force Times

Failure to communicate: Army wife’s collection heavy on stereotypes, short on joy

Siobhan Fallon’s collection of fictional stories about the drama surrounding soldiers and spouses at Fort Hood, Texas, is beautifully written. An Army spouse herself, Fallon saturates the work with details that build a colorful picture of her characters.

The eight stories involve a group of recurring characters involved in distinct narratives. One story details the battle of an injured Army specialist redeploying to a wife set on divorcing him. He returns in the book’s final story, which examines a war widow’s struggle to sort through her untimely loss.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. Prior to reading it, I heard a radio interview with Fallon in which the reporter focused many of his questions on the subject of infidelity in the military, which, as an Army spouse, I believe is greatly overplayed in the civilian media.

Regardless, I felt completely wrapped up in the lives of Fallon’s characters, frantically turning the pages to discover their fates. The first story, after which the book is titled, sets the stage for an insider’s view of the darkest challenges of military life.

Meg, an Army wife at Fort Hood, struggles with her feelings toward her new spouse-neighbor, a Serbian immigrant who speaks very little English. Meg in turns obsesses over, eavesdrops on, hates, helps and avoids her neighbor as they both navigate the challenges of deployment.

But despite really enjoying most of the stories, I still turned to the final page with a sense of disgust. Fallon’s sin here is one of omission. While her stories are entertaining, they present to civilian readers a perfect picture of worst-case-scenario Army life but include nothing of the good.

She paints only in extremes and ignores almost entirely the comparatively frequent triumphs and joys we experience. Where are the stories about the pride of being a military family or the resiliency that characterizes most military spouses and their relationships?

Six of her eight stories deal specifically with divorce, cheating spouses or crumbling marriages. Sure, tales of grief, hardship and scandal make entertaining reading and play into existing stereotypes.

But as a military spouse, I’m disappointed that Fallon does not feel a responsibility to give civilian society an accurate picture of military family life. The things we do to get by in a time of war go far beyond worrying obsessively about a cheating spouse or obnoxious neighbor — a truth Fallon fails to communicate.