The Road Home
by Ellen Emerson White
Rating: *****
Read 8/20/2013
8/2013 I had to come back to this and re-read it after reading the four Zack Emerson Echo Company books. I love it more, now that I’ve read them. I’m flummoxed as to why it’s not packaged as part of the Echo Company series, and have been engaged in some fairly robust debates as to whether it truly IS part of the series. When I read it first, I thought it could stand alone. Now that I’ve read the Echo Company books, I think it’s much more satisfying, more complete. The backstory is there, and things which are alluded to in this book are whole and have depth and breadth and, well, mass.
A phenomenal series with a spectacular cap, that’s how I’m thinking of them.
7/2013 I was a little girl when we finally got out of Vietnam. I remember going outside and banging pots and pans together, my mother crying. And so many people I loved just missed being there, through luck. My starter husband had a really high number. My uncle went to Germany. My dad got out just in time. My true love kept Cape Cod safe. And there are people I love who didn’t just miss being there. People who still flinch when a Chinook flies over. People who just don’t talk about it.
So. This book, which starts in country and stays tightly focused on the war throughout, was tremendously affecting for me. It’s also very well-written. The characters are so, so real, and one roots hard for them to be okay. So hard, in fact, that one finds one’s self up all night, holding the book in a death grip, reading in a tiny pool of light. Well, maybe that’s only me. I didn’t get much more than 3 chapters in before I ordered the first 4 Echo Company books through Inter-Library Loan.
By turns brutal and tender and introspective and broken. Incredibly well-done.
