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You Know When the Men Are Gone

Siobhan Fallon

Start date: June 1, 2011

Finish date: July 31, 2011

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What Members Thought

Apr 06, 2011 Bookmarks Magazine rated it really liked it

Shelves: may-june-2011

Siobhan Fallon spent years at Fort Hood while her husband served in Iraq, and her stories feel deeply authentic—to the point where one reviewer was left near tears. Never preachy or one-dimensional, Fallon instead creates sympathetic, flawed characters caught up in an impossible situation. Ultimately, critics hailed Fallon as a promising new voice who delivers “poignant, sometimes crude, and consistently compelling insights” (Boston Globe) into the lives of our servicemen and the families they l ...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Karen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Being that our country's bravest citizens are still at war in the world, there are family members fighting the good fight too. In order for the non-military connected civilian to even begin to grasp what our neighbor, friend, or a stranger you see at the store is going through, YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE is a must read. It's raw, riddled with emotion, tough, sad as hell and though its fiction, very very real. These stories will stay with me forever. My thoughts go to my friends who are milit ...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Lisa Roberts rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

4.5 stars. These are excellent chapter stories centered around Fort Hood and what happens when men are deployed. The fictional stories tell of different families, most particularly regarding marriages and how each party feels, either when the husband is gone, when he returns, how the couple communicates and what happens to the marriages before, during and after deployment. Now that I've written this description, it sounds like a book that I would never want to read, but I am so glad that I did. ...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Diane Prokop rated it it was amazing

Broken relationships, cheating husbands, and children acting out make up the grist of any good story. You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon has plenty of that and more all centered around Fort Hood Army base.
When I picked up Fallon’s debut collection of eight short stories, I quickly put it down to read another day. I feel bad about war. It’s sad and it sucks the life out of those it touches mentally and physically. Do I feel good about our soldiers putting their lives in jeopardy? Broken relationships, cheating husbands, and children acting out make up the grist of any good story. You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon has plenty of that and more all centered around Fort Hood Army base.
When I picked up Fallon’s debut collection of eight short stories, I quickly put it down to read another day. I feel bad about war. It’s sad and it sucks the life out of those it touches mentally and physically. Do I feel good about our soldiers putting their lives in jeopardy? Do I need a reminder of the precipice of mass destruction we sit on that could easily blow us up in the blink of an eye? Do I want to read about mangled bodies, relationships and families? As it turns out, I do.
The fact that this book about war was written by a woman made me pick it up again and I am so glad I did. Fallon pulls back the curtain on an aspect of the war that’s not often exposed. She writes about the families of those who serve: the wives of the men who deploy, the husbands who serve and the children caught in the crossfire. And she writes from experience. She is married to an Army officer who has deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. She knows her subject intimately and it shows when she gives us a peek into the small details of everyday life of the military family.
In one story, Meg Brady becomes obsessed with her next door neighbor’s life and listens through the paper thin walls to her comings and goings day after day while she waits for her husband to return from his tour of duty. There’s Ellen Roddy battling cancer and trying to understand what is happening to her young children who are acting out. Her husband was supposed to deploy but stayed to help manage the family while she manages her illness. Carla Wolenski struggles to cope with her husband when he returns from duty full of anger and almost a stranger to her.
Fallon also gives us the flip side when she writes from the male perspective of an injured soldier coming home to a wife who has decided to deploy to another life that does not include him. Another is of a soldier, Moge, who finds himself attracted to the female Iraqi interpreter in his unit and who realizes he doesn’t want to leave his men to return home.
Fallon does a superb job of relaying the whirlwind of activity that goes into motion when a soldier deploys, when he comes home, or when he dies - detailing all the rituals of their lives that become the glue holding it all together. All eight stories are loosely connected and so the protagonist in one might be a supporting character in another which gives it cohesiveness that builds familiarity and makes it read like a novel.
I found myself wanting more and I think any of these stories could make a great full-length novel. You know it’s good when it leaves you wondering about the characters long after you finish the story. Fallon doesn’t aggrandize the lives and no moral judgments are made on whether war is right or wrong. It just is. I wish we lived in a world without war, but until we do we are lucky to have an author like Fallon who can help explain it to us. ...more

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May 09, 2011 Alison rated it it was amazing

Every American should read this book.

Even though You Know When The Men Are Gone is a work of fiction, it reads like non-fiction. It is a collection of personal stories about what life is really like living on a military base like Fort Hood.

"In a world where it is normal for a thousand men to pack their bags, meet on a parade field, and then disappear for an entire year, the women of deployed soldiers stick together." - Chapter One

Author Siobhan Fallon gets inside the hearts and minds of soldier ...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Charisse rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, best-of-2011

Amazing. This is a collection of stories which centers around Ft. Hood, TX. Fallon tells beautiful and heartbreaking stories from the military families perspectives - the wives, the children, the returning husbands...

I live near the Army War College in Carlisle. We have many military families who move into our neighborhoods and leave after a year or three. I have much admiration for the strength these families display. This series of stories provides a window into their world. 5 stars.

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Jan 04, 2011 Gayla Bassham rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011-reads

An elegantly written short story collection, with a unique setting (at least, I don't know of any other story collections set on a military base). I wasn't totally blown away, but on the other hand there are a couple of stories that will stay with me for a while--particularly the slightly creepy "You Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming" and the poignant "Inside the Break." Definitely worth picking up if you are a fan of short stories. ...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Antje rated it liked it

After getting used to reading short stories - every time I got into the story, it was over - it was a great collection of viewpoints on today's military lifestyle. ...more

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