SINCE HOMER WROTE THE ODYSSEY, much has been written about war. Descriptions of battles, heroic deeds, and gritty frontline tragedies show war as an often bloody, violent human saga.
But inspiration for Alison Buckholtz, author of Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War (Tarcher, 2009), came from a giant hunk of cardboard.
“The idea of finding a proxy father in cardboard seemed like such an outrageous way to keep the parent-child bond alive,” says Buckholtz, a Navy spouse. “And yet I was so desperate for my kids to find comfort during their dad’s deployment that I decided to give it a try.”
And try she did. The life-size printed poster of her naval aviator husband, termed “Flat Daddy,” joined Buckholtz and her two children for a series of misadventures that eventually led her to pen an article about the rather creepy, deflated version of her husband Scott. The morning her article appeared in The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column, an agent contacted Buckholtz and asked whether she’d ever thought about writing a book.
Buckholtz and other military spouse writers reveal a side of the military that’s completely foreign to most civilians. While modern and traditional war-related books such as American Sniper (William Morrow, 2012) by Chris Kyle and Generation Kill (Putnam Adult, 2004) by Evan Wright portray authentic accounts of the servicemember’s view, books by military spouses go beyond the camouflage to present a different perspective. Siobhan Fallon, author of the short story collection You Know When the Men Are Gone (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2011), calls this emerging genre of military spouse authors “an incredibly valid point of view. We divulge what life is truly like for today’s military families,” she says.
Tanya Biank, author of the non-fiction Army Wives: The Unwritten Code of Military Marriage (St. Martin’s Press, 2006) and Undaunted: The Real Story of American Servicewomen in Today’s Military (NAL Hardcover, 2013), points to 10-plus years of war as a major catalyst for spouse authors. “It’s only natural for another point of view to arise,” she says. “You can tell the military story from many different perspectives.”
So far, books by military spouses have not earned widespread mainstream recognition. Researchers at Goodreads, an online book recommendation website, reported no significant trends, but the genre is gaining traction. In May, the Penguin Group released a paperback edition of Buckholtz’s book that included an updated afterword and additional resources for military families, a sign the publishing house has faith in sales of what Executive Editor Sara Carder calls “a classic resource for military families.” Buckholtz receives emails from military spouses thanking her for writing a book that helped them feel less alone.
Fallon’s book, which sold 25,000 combined print and e-books, won the 2012 PEN Center Literary Award in Fiction and was listed as a best book of 2011 by Janet Maslin of The New York Times. Fallon still draws robust crowds at book signings and events and says the first draft of her second book, a novel about a military family stationed at an embassy in Amman, Jordan, is complete.
60 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108