The Hearts of Soldiers

I stumbled across Hearts of Soldiers quite by chance--and I'm glad I did. It's a beautiful book about families in crisis, with the time when a nation was in crisis as an historical backdrop. This is an author whose future work I look forward to reading.

I finished THE HEARTS OF SOLDIERS in two days--once I read that terrific Prologue, I was completely hooked and could not NOT keep on reading. I was compelled to find out what happens to these characters--closely-drawn people we might meet everyday, we might even BE them. Joan Schroeder leads us into their hearts and we learn about their passions, fears, failures, terrible griefs, and their hopes. I especially liked Cal, the almost-retired policeman, his still-passionate love for his wife Ellen (who leaves him early on in the book), and his sense of failure about his absent son. Also I'll never forget Hannah, the shining-star precocious daughter of the main character Allison, and Allison's struggle to recover from Hannah's death (I'm not giving anything away - we learn about this in Chapter One). The writing is wonderful--with beautiful and sometimes mystical images like, "I opened the window and brushed the drift of snow from the sill, and that baby's bright soul flew out of our house into the night, trailing light so intense I had to shield my eyes...," or later in the book, "Beneath our bodies, the quilted stars spread across the darkness like Heaven come to Earth." As an aspiring writer myself (also librarian and constant reader), I know how difficult this is. When I tell friends about the book, I say that reading it was like devouring a "death-by-chocolate" dessert--so rich and intense I had to pause now and then to savor and reflect on what was happening. Compared to some recent novels that I consider overpraised, if not also bloodless and contrived (my opinion about M.Cunningham's The Hours and Schlink's The Reader), HEARTS is the real thing. You'll remember this book. It will change you.

Joan Schroeder's new book is a fast paced, well written, and story of loss and love. I was pulled into the plot on the first page and would not have put it down if I didn't have to. We meet the main character Allison Carver when she is a girl in West Virginia. She witnesses her parents' marriage in a make-or-break situation. Next, we find her as an adult in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She is in her own difficult marriage, trying to recover from the loss of her younger daughter, while also trying to be a mother to her remaining daughter, a wife to her distant husband, and a social worker to her clients. She finds herself drawn to one of those clients, Ellis Burns, a Vietnam veteran and fellow survivor. We also meet the engaging Cal Davies, Allison's neighbor and chief of police. His wife Ellen walks out on him after 40 years of marriage. Between them is the unspoken heartbreak of a son gone to drugs and then simply gone from their lives. Add to this a hot summer when the churches of Gettysburg start being set afire. Who is burning them down? And, why? The secrets of these families are revealed as the clues mount. This is a gripping and haunting tale of people 'soldiering through' life's big losses--children, love, faith--and how they find their way again. I recommend it to anyone who likes both a good story and good characters, who wants a good bit more than a 'whodunnit.'

This powerful novel examines the ways in which people deal with devastating loss: the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, the loss of faith, the loss of love. In richly evocative language, Schroeder weaves an almost magical story of reawakening and healing passion in characterers Allison and Ellis. The background of this truly moving love story is Gettysburg, PA, site of the Civil War's most devastating battle; and the blood and loss of that battle becomes a character in the action, too. Readers who love Alice Hoffman's magical and sensuous novels will love this one, too. And it makes much better use of the Civil War as background than does Frazier's "Cold Mountain." Get it! Read it! Love it!