Casualties

by Elizabeth Marro

Overview

A heartbreaking and insightful debut novel about the wars we fight overseas, at home, and within our own hearts.
 
Some come back whole. Some come back broken. Some just never come back...
 
As an executive for one of the most successful military defense contractors in the country, Ruth Nolan should have been thrilled when her troubled son, Robbie, chose to join the marines. But she wasn’t. She was terrified.
 
So, when he returns home to San Diego after his second tour in Iraq, apparently unscathed, it feels like a chance to start over and make things right—until a scandal at work tears her away from their reunion. By the next morning, Robbie is gone. A note arrives for Ruth in the mail a few days later saying, “I’m sorry for everything. It’s not your fault. I love you.”
 
Without a backward glance, Ruth packs up Robbie’s ashes and drives east, heading away from her guilt and regret. But the closer she gets to the coast she was born on, the more evident it becomes that she won’t outrun her demons—eventually, she’ll have to face them and confront the painful truth about her past, her choices, the war, and her son.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425283462
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/02/2016
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Marro’s work has appeared in The San Diego Reader, The Gloucester Daily Times, LiteraryMama.com, and elsewhere. A long-time resident of the “North Country” region of New Hampshire, she holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire and Rutgers University, and now lives in San Diego. Casualties is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

How do you survive the unendurable? Marro’s gorgeous debut is about war, grief, guilt, and grappling with the truths you don't expect, and finally taking the risk and acknowledging the ones that you do. Moving and full of heart.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You
 
“With its gripping plot and seasoned prose, it is hard to imagine that Casualties is Elizabeth Marro’s debut novel.  She writes of a mother’s worst nightmare, and offers no easy answers.  By the end of her novel we care for her characters, and hope that each can find the elusive redemption they so desire.”—Alan Russell, bestselling author of Burning Man
 
“Conflicting human needs, difficult choices, missed opportunities, and the random luck of the draw challenge the true-to-life, complicated characters in Elizabeth Marro’s page-turning novel. This is an important story set against the drama of today’s volatile world that asks moral questions yet, ultimately, resides in the heart.”—Judy Reeves, author of Wild Women, Wild Voices 
 
“There's an emotional jolt early in the pages of Elizabeth Marro's debut novel Casualties that reminds us not all battle scars start on the battlefield. The bell-like tolls of this tragic event will reverberate throughout the rest of this heartbreaking novel as Ruth and Casey, two strangers broken by grief and regret, reluctantly join together on a cross-country road trip. Elizabeth Marro made me care about these two people so much that by the end of the novel I'd forgotten they were fictional characters and I was ready to call them up to see how they were doing and if they'd finally found their way toward peace and forgiveness.”—David Abrams, author of Fobbit

“A gritty tragedy that unrelentingly addresses painful issues of war, suicide, and the shady dealings of defense contractors…It isn’t a happily-ever-after story, but Marro casts a ray of hope that a good life can be lived after terrible tragedy.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Casualties has a lot of depth. . . . Any book that can bring me to tears is a winner."—Fresh Fiction
 

From the Publisher

02/01/2016
Marro's debut is a gritty and difficult yet redemptive look at the casualties of war. Ruth Nolan is an executive working for a military contractor whose son is just returning from his second tour of duty in Iraq. Though Robbie has come back unscathed physically, the same can't be said for his mental state. When a scandal overtakes Ruth's company, she makes a fateful decision—and after Robbie commits suicide, she is lost. Ruth flees her life and the death of her son on a cross-country trip. Along the way, she meets Casey MacInerney, a vagrant struggling with his own past. He forces her to take him with her. As the pair travels east they learn to trust each other and to begin to examine the choices they've made. VERDICT Though the reading isn't easy, this powerful first novel will leave the reader reflecting for days.—Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Library Journal

2015-11-17
Marro's debut novel is a gritty tragedy that unrelentingly addresses painful issues of war, suicide, and the shady dealings of defense contractors. Ruth Nolan, a powerful executive for a military contractor, finds herself entangled in RyCom's legal debacle at the same time her son, Robbie, returns home from a stint in Iraq, mentally still at war. In turmoil of her own, Ruth makes a decision that she will regret forever. Robbie commits suicide, and she blames herself. When she abruptly flees, trying to outrun memories, regrets, and the people who remind her of them, she creates her own combat zone. Casey MacInerney, a vagrant and gambler also grieving his past, takes advantage of Ruth and forces her to take him with her on her cross-country journey. Ruth's and Casey's survival depends on trusting each other. Traveling together forces each to examine past actions and seek ways to forge a future worth living. Marro's perception of the hurt and guilt her characters carry is deftly portrayed, although she provides readers no relief as they wrestle with their demons—not a minute to take a breath, nothing to chuckle about, nothing peaceful with which to buffer the storm of, well, casualties. But through her characters' soul-searching and self-discovery, Marro provides a clear sense that, while the past can't be undone, the future always offers a chance to make amends, and the human spirit can triumph over pain and find hope in family and forgiveness. This is a tortured novel and yet a redemptive one. It isn't a happily-ever-after story, but Marro casts a ray of hope that a good life can be lived after terrible tragedy.

Kirkus Reviews