Review of You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon - Essay Example

The author, Siobhan Fallon has invested in these stories a variety of emotions, realism and conciseness, which is prominent in the writing style and the tone used by the author. This book, “You Know When Men are Gone” movingly makes the citizens of the United States of America and its readers, recall, remember and pay tribute to the numerous sacrifices made by officials and staff of the naval, land, marine and the air forces of the country and not only the officials but also their parents, wives and children as well.

This shows us that the sacrifices, like charity, when in the armed forces, begin at home. This book makes extensive use of different elements of literature, namely denotation and symbolism and these are used at numerous places, across all the stories. “Fallon provides a full three-sixty on military life, taking readers into the daily existences of both the women left behind to manage the mundane details and minor crises of domestic life and the loud-talking, cursing, dreaming-of-home men who, knowing that they cannot control what happens while they’re away, grapple with the undeniable possibility that when they do finally return to home and family, they won’t find the same home and family they left” (Schinsky).

  This book despite its very clear and denotative message of the absence of the military personnel from home, possesses a certain connotation. Set in the very secure colony of Fort Hood as well as the Green Zone in Iraq, the symbolism in this book by Fallon focuses on the world within the all the stake holders of war, especially the men fighting, the women waiting and the children crying. The stories in this capacity are inarguably out of the ordinary and attention grasping. This is not because of the fact that they are informative, emotional and heart wrenching but because they shed light on the truth—the profound, expressive truth of all the stakeholders of war and all those involved in these stories.

This is because of the reason that the write Siobhan Fallon pursues first the complete realism of the life and surroundings of her book’s character. This she does through the prose which is concise and reverberating, later attaching with it a connotation. Therefore, the collection of short stories, received much praise from the masses and they exceeded expectations of all those who read them, primarily because of the fact that these stories were merely a narration by the author about her personal experiences.

Each one of the short storiesput forth a varied theme, ranging from the partsthat military personnel, their staff and their colleagues must fulfill, regardless of the degree of command or the location, wherever they are, home or combat. This novel makes the readers aware of the elusive control that the military transmits even over the most apparentlyinsignificantfacets of time, how lengthy the grass may grow in the front yard, and the superiorand significant part that is played by the families of these military personnel in each other’s lives.

The family network, as described in the book is so inter woven that the families start feeling a certain sense of dependence upon each other. The author of this short stories collection Siobhan Fallon has taken great care of very intricate and seemingly lesser important matters. The author here has been very cautious and