The things we do to make it home

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The Things We Do to Make It Home captures, in clear, unadorned prose, the legacy the Vietnam War left to the wives and children of the men who fought in it. Beverly Gologorsky's deeply human novel charts the fates of six couples - the men who came home profoundly altered and the women who strove to create for them a safe haven yet in the end could do little more than bear witness to their pain. In 1973, stateside and seemingly whole, Rooster, Frankie, Jason, and the other vets begin getting on with their lives. Some marry, find jobs, buy houses. But beneath the surface activity, there's a dangerous fault line. Twenty years later, the war is still with them: Rod and Emma face the loss of their house and everything they have worked for; Rooster lives on the street, alienated from his wife, Millie, and their rebellious daughter, Sara-Jo; Frankie returns to Vietnam to put his ghosts to rest.