RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIn his short novel, Ackerman accomplishes what a mountain of maximalist books have rarely delivered over tens of thousands of pages and a few decades: He makes pure character-based literary art, free of irony, free of authorial self-aggrandizement, dedicated only to deeply human storytelling. Waiting for Eden is a journey through the traumas, betrayals and ecstasies of contemporary warfare and the multiple lives touched and sometimes shattered by one combat injury or death. Be forewarned, there is more trauma here than ecstasy, yet there is also grace and wonder. Ackerman accomplishes so much in so few pages that the book feels nearly unclassifiable ... To identify this book as a novel seems inadequate: Waiting for Eden is a sculpture chiseled from the rarest slab of life experience. The sculptor’s tools are extreme psychological interrogation and clear artistic vision. It is a vision from which we might discover some new knowledge about war and being—perhaps even regain a moral core.
