I came across Lizzie’s War by Tim Farrington while browsing at the Island Bookstore in Corolla, NC. It was a staff recommendation, and I picked it up because I am always interested in reading about military families left behind while their loved ones fight wars abroad. (And there have been a lot of news articles about them recently). Lizzie’s War is about a woman raising four children during the Vietnam War while her Marine husband is gone for two tours of duty.
I can’t find many reviews of this book online. Here’s an excerpt from The New Yorker (available on the book’s page on Amazon.com):
Farrington’s urgent, moving narrative turns the war novel on its head. It’s 1967, and while Mike O’Reilly, a career marine, is getting shot at in Vietnam, his wife, Lizzie, is dodging domestic shrapnel: she’s two months into an unplanned pregnancy, she flinches every time the doorbell rings, and her four children, at school, are hearing that their father is a baby-killer. While Mike’s active-duty letters, full of mud and gore, form part of the story, it is Farrington’s unsparing account of Lizzie’s life at home—the desperately untidy house, her small attempts to carve out time for herself, her mounting anxiety—that takes the novel beyond its particular time and place and makes it a captivating study of tenderness and blame.
Amazon reader reviews are very favorable. Book Sense, a consortium of independent booksellers, chose Lizzie’s War as one of its BookSense Picks in May 2005, when the book came out. One of Book Sense’s member bookstores offered this review:
This strong and moving novel is a reminder that Vietnam was a war fought on two fronts — the bloody and baffling war in Southeast Asia and the war at home of protest and civil unrest. Lizzie cares for her children while her husband, Mike, serves his tour of duty. Farrington’s novel shows their ordinary heroism and love.
Here is a feature on Farrington and the writing of Lizzie’s War on BookWeb, the website of the American Booksellers Association. An excerpt:
Extraordinary is a good word, too, to describe Lizzie’s War, with its detailed and gripping descriptions of battle, and the way it believably and honestly conveys Lizzie’s simultaneous longing for and anger at her Marine-officer husband. She, at home with their four children (and pregnant with a fifth), feels out of place among the military wives in the neighborhood and longs to return to the acting career she set aside upon the onset of motherhood. Her inner turmoil is palpable, and her attempts to maintain her sanity and strength are by turns funny and familiar, touching and troubling.
Has anyone read anything by Tim Farrington before? Please comment.
PS. Amazon has the hardcover of Lizzie’s War on sale for $7.99 right now.