From Barnes & NobleThat war stories only tell half the story has become a commonplace, but this debut collection of short stories by the wife of an Iraq conflict veteran puts that truism in stark new light. These interconnected tales show Fort Hood wives and their distant mates as they suffer through wars on different continents. Anxieties mount with every Baghdad casualty bulletin, but even the return from battle tours is no guarantee that before equals after: "You Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming" is the challenge laid down in the title of the book's penultimate story. You Know When the Men Are Gone has always drawn comparisons to the work of Raymond Carver and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Janet MaslinSiobhan Fallon tells gripping, straight-up, no-nonsense stories about American soldiers and their families…in this brief, tight collection—and there's not a loser in the bunch…
—The New York Times
Lily Burana…terrific and terrifically illuminating…The highest praise I can give this book—as a critic and a soldier's wife—is that it's so achingly authentic that I had to put it down and walk away at least a dozen times.
