Lizzie's War: A Novel (Plus) [Paperback]

Tim Farrington (Author)

Book Description

Series: Plus | Publication Date: May 2, 2006

A family epic laced with authenticity, wit and unforgettable characters. Liz O'Reilly has a husband in Vietnam, 4 kids under the age of 12 (and one on the way), and a burgeoning crush on the family priest. An unconventional love story.

It's Summer 1967 and Mike O'Reilly's just shipped out to Vietnam. Liz O'Reilly is trying to keep it all together for their four kids – 6 year old Deb–Deb (who believes she is an otter), 8 year old Angus, Kathie, (who at age 9 helps to integrate the local Blue Bird troop with her best friend Temperance), and 11 year old Danny – the spitting image of Mike. While Mike is off fighting "his" war, Liz struggles with her own desires and yearnings – to pick up the theatre career she abandoned when Danny was born, to care for the four children she loves fiercely yet also occasionally resents, to leave the backdoor unlocked so she always has an escape route. While set during the conflict in Vietnam, Farrington's novel captures the other side of any war – that of the war at home and the careening emotions of the spouses and families left behind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Liz and Mike O'Reilly's marriage weathers the Vietnam War in Farrington's fourth novel (after The Monk Downstairs), a well-crafted but somewhat timeworn story about a military family's stoicism in the field and on the home front. Capt. Michael O'Reilly, USMC, ships out from Okinawa for Da Nang, while back home in Detroit, where the streets are afire from the 1967 riots, a pregnant Liz struggles alone to raise their four children. Mike is "turned toward battle like a plant toward the sun," but Liz quietly curses the Marine Corp and draws on hidden reserves of strength to be a good Catholic wife and mother. As commander of a beleaguered company in Vietnam, Mike is badly wounded and further strains the marriage when he returns to combat instead of coming home. Meanwhile, a near miscarriage in her third trimester almost costs Liz her life, but she decides to keep the baby rather than guarantee her own survival. Farrington's graceful prose moves the engaging narrative along at a brisk clip, but tough, noble Mike and tough, big-hearted Liz remain mired in type. The result is a compassionate but unambitious novel about enduring marital love and family ties during wartime from an author who was willing to take greater risks in his earlier works.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

Farrington's urgent, moving narrative turns the war novel on its head. It's 1967, and while Mike O'Reilly, a career marine, is getting shot at in Vietnam, his wife, Lizzie, is dodging domestic shrapnel: she's two months into an unplanned pregnancy, she flinches every time the doorbell rings, and her four children, at school, are hearing that their father is a baby-killer. While Mike's active-duty letters, full of mud and gore, form part of the story, it is Farrington's unsparing account of Lizzie's life at home—the desperately untidy house, her small attempts to carve out time for herself, her mounting anxiety—that takes the novel beyond its particular time and place and makes it a captivating study of tenderness and blame.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006083448X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060834487
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,716,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Novel, October 26, 2005

By 

A Discerning Reader (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lizzie's War: A Novel (Hardcover)

Tim Farrington is a wonderul writer who understands life so very well--his women, men, and children are so real and so heartbreakingly like our own that we can't help but embrace them too.

Lizzie's War is, at its core, a love story. Lizzie's love for her husband, so great that she still loves him in spite of her anger over his refusal to come home from the battlefield until his tour was over. Her love for her children, both alive and in utero, even though she did not want to become pregnant again. Most vitally, Lizzie learns to love herself after she's rediscovered the essence of her soul: this unearthed only after profound sadness and solitude.

Farrington lightly skips away from the politics of the US war in Vietnam. He really is writing this novel about a remarkable woman's re-discovering herself after emerging from the refiner's fire. His prose is just wonderful and thoughtful and poignant--if only there were more literary gems like Farrington out there! Another topic Farrington treats with respect is the role of organized religion, specifically Catholicism, in an unfair world. It plays a role in Lizzie's tragedy and triumph, though much more sublime than one would first suppose.

What a wonderful read this was! Sit down with this and enjoy a beautiful story of love, discovery, and a family's redemption despite the horrors of a faraway war.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A phenomenal narrative of emotion, June 4, 2005

By 

N. Larrabee (Tarrytown, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lizzie's War: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lizzie O'Reilly has to valiantly struggle with being the dutiful officer's wife and mother to their three kids while her husband serves his tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Chapters alternate between Lizzie in the States and Michael in Vietnam. Husband and wife, on separate continents have to deal with life's harsh issues; loss, grief, discrimination, desperation, and tragedy. Their kids grow up all too quickly. Horrified at the thought, Lizzie begrudgingly accepts the fact that the Marines will always play a role in their family's life. Each chapter is an eloquent but hard statement on how a war impacts a family. Each chapter is filled with emotion; notably when their fourth child is born. Their stories combine to create an amazing, well written love story that struggles to survive the dark days of war.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poignant portrayal of both fronts--home & combat, August 8, 2006

By 

R. Smith "oldmoviefan" (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lizzie's War: A Novel (Plus) (Paperback)

As usual, I think the author has excellent insight into human nature. Part of what I think makes him a good writer is the small things the characters do or think that make them seem so real--e.g. usually she used saccharin, but somehow Mike getting blown up made using real sugar seem more appropriate. I mean, when something serious happens we do have thoughts and behaviors like suddenly something like sticking to a diet seems too trivial to be bothered with any more, right?

My only complaint about this book is that after doing such a good job showing us what it's like for both halves of the relationship while one is off to war, and mentions the physical aftermath, there's no mention of the emotional aftermath--i.e. Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder. Considering the number of Vietnam vets for whom this was (& still is?) an issue--homeless vets, vets who are still constantly in & out of vet hospitals dealing wtih it--I think it might have been more realistic to have at least brought it up in someone else, even if he still wanted his romance between the main characters to have a happy ending.