PositiveLondon Review of Books (UK)Susan Carruthers sets out to explore the long and surprisingly complicated story of the ‘Dear John’ break-up letter sent by American women to US troops serving overseas. But her account offers insights into a broader entanglement, involving the militarism that shores up modern nationhood; the emotional and sexual ties that sustain and can destroy men in the military; and the women on whom male soldiers have poured hatred as well as adoration ... Before reading Carruthers’s book, I had scarcely considered how profoundly concern about the rejected or cuckolded soldier permeates Western culture ... Carruthers has less to say about sex workers than she might, which means that she probably underestimates their role in the business of war.
