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Home Front
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Jolene Zarkades is a wife, mother and Army National Guard helicopter pilot whose twelve-year marriage to defence lawyer Michael is close to breaking. When her unit is deployed to Iraq, she leaves their two daughters in Michael’s care and conceals the danger and exhaustion of military service behind reassuring letters and telephone calls home.
A catastrophic event changes Jolene’s body and sense of self, while Michael’s work on a criminal case forces him to confront post-traumatic stress and the human cost of war. Their separate struggles expose the distance that has grown between them and the burden carried by military families. The novel treats deployment, injury and recovery through the domestic consequences of a conflict that enters the household long before the soldier returns.