Customer Reviews

My Father's War

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Some years ago, during an annual pilgrimage to Branford, CT to pay my respects to a lost loved-one, I noticed a gravestone adorned with shell offerings in St. Agnes Cemetery. Knowing of my Branford connection, an old friend recommended this book, which reveals that these shells were left by the author, Julia Mary Collins, at the grave of her father, Jeremiah Collins.

The author evokes the deep roots of her family in Branford, a coastal New England town that was in the autumn of its economic prime, yet still suffused with the natural beauties of sea and shore, and sustained by family trees and traditions. Despite a childhood tempered by the Great Depression and fading family fortunes, Jeremiah Collins nonetheless believed in a brighter future and a share of the American Dream.

His aspirations, along with his innocence and idealism, perished in the fiery crucible of the battle for the Pacific Island of Okinawa, in which over 250,000 soldiers and civilians perished. Cast adrift with his altered worldview and survivor's guilt in his unchanged hometown of Branford, Corporal Collins existed in a tenuous state of suspension between the still living and the dead.

The author, who became her father's confidante, perceptively and movingly captures his physical anguish and psychic pain, as well as its lasting impact on her family. Her book serves as a deeply human counterweight to the sea of books that celebrate the triumphs of WWII, but assiduously avoid the incalculable costs for "the greatest generation."

Julia Collins writes "let me bring back my dad, the way he was when I was seven, just before I began to lose him for good." She has not only resurrected her father, she has delivered the eloquent eulogy he deserves, and has gently and lovingly laid him and his anguish to rest, finally at peace in the earth of his native Branford.

The sunbleached shells she leaves at her father's grave, washed ashore from the Atlantic ocean of Jeremiah Collins's childhood, but resonant with the Pacific ocean where he fought his greatest battles, bear silent witness to her enduring love.

This book is a testament to the uniqueness and isolation of each "ordinary" American family. The author perfectly captures the claustrophobia of a dysfunctional family. The whole family seems trapped in a childlike powerlessness to change their destinies or control events;you forgive the children, you have difficulty forgiving the parents. World War II seems a small thing in comparison to the larger war on Collins Drive.

Without 20:20 hindsight or wishful thinking, Julia Collins has written a graceful and moving work that stares straight into the failings of her father as a war hero, husband, breadwinner and parent and somehow manages to elevate and dignify the person her dad was. This challenge made all the more difficult by having Jeremiah Collins pose for a portrait that in life, he would never have held.

My Fathers War is not the retelling of one ex-Marines pointless miseries but wisdom collected from the perspective of the point-blank battles that raged on the homefront long after the formal surrender of any proclaimed American enemy.

For the sons and daughters of WW II combat veterans this book is a must read. The author vividly details the pain and suffering many combat veterans' lived with through out their lives, and the effects on their families. In her writing you can see how the sufferings of some of these veterans' struggle with until death; witch was their only relief.
Ms Collins and I have a few things in common. Both are Grandfathers were close friends. They both were businessmen on Main St in the center of Branford CT, and had sons over seas in the Marine Corps. They spent many hours comforting each other that their sons would survive the way and return home safely to Branford. In fact my family celebrated VJ day at the Collin's home in Pine Orchard.

At first, I could only read this book in bits at bedtime, but by the time I hit chapter four, I could no longer put it down and finished it in the middle of the night. I wept long and hard. Sadness and overwhelming joy. Ms. Collins - no, Julia - thank you for having the courage to share your story with us and for telling it so even-handedly. I felt like my grandfather, a storyteller whose quiet voice used to gather amazingly large crowds, was telling a tale of that Great Generation, of the tribulations faced not just a war but at home. And I feel sorry for anyone who has not heard this tale of yours and had the chance to share its epiphanies. Thank you again.

Julia,
Before anything else, I must thank you for writing this book.
There is a certain all-American, old-fashioned, no-nonsense style in your writing that rings true of the entire (pre-)war generation, and which most people nowadays have lost. My grandfather had it, and I imagine you, just like him, in a typical scenario, telling family members at a restaurant table a WWII story - and finding every table around straining to listen to your quiet, steady voice as the tale draws in everyone within earshot. I greatly enjoyed finding this quality again, in your writing.
I am amazedd at the incredible harmony you struck in telling two stories simultaneously, yours and your father's (punctuated by song quotations).
_My Father's War_ reminds me of Ursula K. LeGuin's _The Dispossed_, which also alternates between near past and more distant past until the two paths finish in the present.
Thank you. Writing this book was a brave and very good thing to do.
David

Collins' moving memoir of her battle-scarred father offers readers a window into the lives of vets after the fighting is over, and the battles that emerged on the homefront. It's as much a story of the author's father, Jeremiah Collins--Yale student-turned soldier-turned salesman, as it is the writer's own. With painstaking honesty and powerful imagery, Collins paints a portrait of small town America in the grips of post-World War II boosterism. Some of the pictures aren't pretty, but Collins, a gifted writer, manages to move the reader through those passages and take them to a place of solace and closure.

I read this book over a period of three days while nursing my baby; I could not put it down. it rings so true, I could even imagine Jerry's voice singing those old big band tunes and improvising those bedtime stories for "the girls" as he tried to keep his nocturnal memories at bay. He sounds like a true Irishman, that heartbreaking combination of humor and melancholy. For personal reasons too complex to describe, I am very grateful for this book and for its courageous author, who revealed as much of herself as of her haunted father. I will read it many times.

Collins' moving memoir of her battle-scarred father offers readers a window into the lives of vets after the fighting is over, and the battles that emerged on the homefront. It's as much a story of the author's father, Jeremiah Collins--Yale student-turned soldier-turned salesman, as it is the writer's own. With painstaking honesty and powerful imagery, Collins paints a portrait of small town America in the grips of post-World War II boosterism. Some of the pictures aren't pretty, but Collins, a gifted writer, manages to move the reader through those passages and take them to a place of solace and closure.

Without 20:20 hindsight or wishful thinking, Julia Collins has written a graceful and moving work that stares straight into the failings of her father as a war hero, breadwinner and parent and somehow manages to elevate and dignify the person her dad was. This challenge made all the more difficult by requiring Jerry Collins to pose for a portrait that in life, he would never have held. My Fathers War is not the retelling of one ex-Marines pointless miseries but wisdom collected from the perspective of the point-blank battles that raged on the homefront long after the formal surrender of any proclaimed American enemy.