RaveThe Seattle TimesFinkel chronicles what he calls the ‘after-war,’ taking us along as soldiers from the same battalion struggle to find peace at home. They struggle with depression and anxiety and nightmares. They struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, better known as PTSD and TBI. They struggle to reconnect with their families and their previous selves. And in an after-war as dangerous as this, with suicides outpacing combat deaths, they struggle to stay alive … Finkel’s book is, in every sense, exceptional — exceptional for its commitment, its compassion and its execution. It is public service, a book built on extraordinary access, with reporting so relentless and writing so fine and spare that our understanding of war’s enduring cost is forever changed.
Tom Perrotta
RaveThe Seattle TimesThis is the oh-so-strange-and-enticing starting point for Tom Perrotta's latest novel. He calls the event a ‘random harvest,’ adding, ‘An indiscriminate Rapture was no Rapture at all’ … Perrotta seeks emotional depth — and finds it, by placing an ordinary family in these extraordinary times, and by choosing the most familiar of settings, a suburb … Perrotta combines absurd circumstance and authentic character to wondrous effect, turning his story into a vivid exploration of what we believe, what matters most, and how, if untethered, we move on … Each member of the Garvey family will take a different path through this New World, and as they do, you'll find yourself caring about the choices they make and the consequences they meet. Perrotta treats his characters with sympathy and invites readers to do the same.
