Tim Farrington: Lizzie's War

The futility of the Vietnam War, going beyond the battlefields to show the impact on Marines' families back home in America, is the focus of Lizzie's War.

It centres on Lizzie, wife of Captain Mike O'Reilly and mother of four with another baby on the way. While Lizzie holds the home front, her husband returns to Vietnam, fighting another country's war, killing the bad guys before they kill him.

Their sons, to Lizzie's dismay, are caught up in the glory of war, acting out manoeuvres in the backyard. In contrast, she yearns for a normal family life, wishing her duty-bound husband would just get himself back home in one piece.

As Mike's company is caught up in a futile bloodbath, the family take solace in their church where Father Germaine, a Vietnam vet and eccentric priest, befriends Lizzie. The family look to the priest for strength and insight, unaware he is experiencing his own crisis of faith.

It's no easy task being a military wife as well as a good Catholic and mother, and Lizzie resents the idiocy of her husband protecting God and family at the expense of his own wife and kids. Her frustration grows at having put her life on hold while trying to maintain normality for her family at a time when the world around her seems out of control.

When Mike is badly wounded and chooses to return to combat instead of coming home, further strain is placed on their marriage.

Strangely, it's not the deaths and horrors of war that most affect Mike in the end, but his own premature baby's life-or-death struggle.

When Mike's tour of duty ends and he is reunited with Lizzie, both battle-wounded from life experiences, they have to open these old wounds and answer difficult questions if their marriage is to survive.

Tim Farrington's O'Reilly family takes readers into their hearts and their heads. What I found fascinating was the soldiers' perspective — their unwavering acceptance of being battle pawns in a war their side was not going to win, even when death surrounded them. It is this insight of military minds and courage under fire which makes Lizzie's War a worthwhile read.

* Donna McIntyre is a Herald sub-editor
* HarperCollins, $30