"Nora Eisenberg has given us an intimate portrait, both heart-breaking and eye-opening, of the young men and women whose lives were destroyed by the first Gulf War. Everyone who wants the war in Iraq to end tomorrow should read this book today."
--Vivian Gornick
"Nora Eisenberg brilliantly uses the first Gulf War as a literary vehicle to convey the horrible realities that veterans and their families have to live with when "the war is over." From PTSD to Agent Orange to Gulf War Syndrome to Depleted Uranium, the reader will understand and feel the everlasting wounds, and the pain and destruction that war continues to inflict upon people way after victory is announced. When You Come Home paints a more accurate portrait than any official or glorifying account of war. It is a principled and beautifully written call to reason, to action, and to why we must embrace peace."--Camilo Mejía
"In 1991, troops sent to Iraq for the first Gulf War returned home with a litany of physical, neurological, and psychological symptoms that collectively became known as Gulf War syndrome. Eisenberg bravely sheds light on the resultant devastation suffered by one small group of friends and their families...In a story that is, sadly, as pertinent as it is ageless, Eisenberg poignantly demonstrates that casualties of war occur both on and off the battlefield and ironically illustrates the vivid consequences when those in charge of veterans' postwar care fail to meaningfully 'support our troops'"--Booklist
"This book is great in every detail. It has drama, suspense, and even happiness throughout all the drama. I will suggest it to anyone that is looking for to enlighten his mind over the ponderous issues of war veterans in America: their plight, their endless vicissitudes that very few people seem to care about, apart for their close relatives. This book is a good read, one you could just sit down and read for hours on end."--CSMS Magazine
"If everyone reflected as realistically as Nora Eisenberg upon war and the men and women who fight those wars, we would all look at war differently. I urge you to read this book. The story's as relevant to all of us, to our veterans who deserve our best care, and to our politics today as it was in the 1960s and the 1990s."--Jude Nagurney Camwell, Iddybud Journal
"In her new book, When You Come Home, Nora Eisenberg contrasts nurturing and destruction, health and sickness, a bright future and endless suffering...The Persian Gulf War has left a...lasting stamp on Eisenberg's characters and tens of thousands of real-life veterans and their families--a brew of maladies known as gulf war illness. A federal report released [in January 2009] concludes that roughly one in four of the 697,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 gulf war suffer from this illness."--Hartford Courant
"[When You Come Home is] a quintessential Curbstone Press book...[a] powerful story of the ongoing impact of Gulf War Illness on veterans and their families and loved ones."--Connecticut Post
It's 1991 and marine reservist Anthony Bravo returns from the first Gulf War to the waiting arms of Lily Engels, the feisty orphan raised in his home. As their childhood affection flames into passionate love, Tony rejoices that war is behind him. But soon his buddies begin to suffer fevers and odd symptoms. Gulf War illness--a cluster of diseases attacking most every bodily system--swoops down, imperiling the young lovers' dreams and prospects. As Tony contends with these new battles, shadowy memories of the Gulf advance from the margins of his mind. Readers will be shocked--and haunted--by what Tony discovers in the gripping conclusion of this groundbreaking novel.
Ultimately, When You Come Home demonstrates how war devastates not only losers but winners, resounding with meaning as we consider not only our past, but our present and future. Eisenberg's masterful weaving of public and personal life, of tragedy and comedy, affects as it informs, and delights even as it deeply disturbs.
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