Dear John: Love and Loyalty in Wartime America

by Susan L. Carruthers

Overview

Are 'Dear John' letters lethal weapons in the hands of men at war? Many US officers, servicemen, veterans, and civilians would say yes. Drawing on personal letters, oral histories, and psychiatric reports, as well as popular music and movies, Susan L. Carruthers shows how the armed forces and civilian society have attempted to weaponize romantic love in pursuit of martial ends, from World War II to today. Yet efforts to discipline feeling have frequently failed. And women have often borne the blame. This sweeping history of emotional life in wartime explores the interplay between letter-writing and storytelling, breakups and breakdowns, and between imploded intimacy and boosted camaraderie. Incorporating vivid personal experiences in lively and engaging prose – variously tragic, comic, and everything in between – this compelling study will change the way we think about wartime relationships.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108830775
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/06/2022
Series:	Military, War, and Society in Modern American History
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Susan L. Carruthers is Professor of US and International History, University of Warwick. The author of six books, including The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace, she taught for fifteen years at Rutgers University-Newark, and has held visiting fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She was a finalist for the 2017 PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Picking up the pieces; 1. The marital and the martial; 2. Rules of engagement, or 'write right!'; 3. Technologies of proximity; 4. 'That's all she wrote': Telling Dear John stories; 5. 'The modern Penelope': Aanalyzing the waiting wife; 6. Emotional injury: Causes and consequences; 7. Severed ties and suicide; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

11/15/2021

University of Warwick historian Carruthers (The Good Occupation) delivers an eye-opening study of wartime romances and breakups. Drawing on soldiers’ oral histories, psychiatric reports, and popular culture, Carruthers discusses the origins and evolution of the “Dear John” letter in American military culture, the use of marriage to avoid the draft, and the development a “more avowedly ‘family friendly’ military” in the 1980s. Throughout, she highlights the “uneven terrain” between men and women; during WWII, civilian women were urged to “write right” because the content and frequency of their letters were considered critical to soldiers’ morale. Women also tended to be blamed for breakups and breakdowns, despite underlying factors that may have impacted their relationships, such as rushed engagements, domestic abuse, and mental health issues. Analyzing “Dear Jane” letters sent by soldiers to their girlfriends at home, Carruthers notes that a man’s receipt of a “Dear John” letter typically “generates social solicitude—along with the latitude to act out, exact revenge, or seek sexual compensation,” while “Dear Jane” recipients are not allowed the same situational ethics. Flashes of wit enliven Carruthers’s academic prose, and she makes a persuasive case that the culture of the “Dear John” letter has “helped make women, not war, the culprit for love’s breakdown under pressure.” This feminist study sheds new light on an age-old topic. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

‘Susan L. Carruthers is an eloquent storyteller. She exposes not only the poignancy of love in times of war, but also how perceptions of girlfriends and wives as ‘flight risks’ become powerful stimuli to male solidarity. A captivating history.’ Joanna Bourke, author of War and Art: A Visual History of Modern Conflict

‘This fast-moving journey through a century of soldiers’ heartbreak and rage at being dumped by their sweethearts reveals the psychological distance between the home front and the war theater, but even more tellingly illuminates the eternal war between men and women.’ Nancy F. Cott, author of Fighting Words: The Brave American Journalists Who Brought the World Home between the Wars

‘Whether distraught, amused, or enraged, jilted GIs have long bonded as victims of betrayal. Susan L. Carruthers’s marvellously written new book not only explores the origin and evolution of the 'Dear John' letter, but illuminates the misogyny that often underlies this military brotherhood, the alleged correlation with suicide, and the impact on the writers of these infamous epistles.’ Brian McAllister Linn, author of Elvis's Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield

‘Dear John is, dare I say, a pleasure to read, in addition to being incisive regarding the gendering and biases built around the mythopoeia of the epistolary breakup. Carruthers's multidimensional interrogation of the wartime brushoff encompasses fictions, reality, sexual orientation, POWs, social media, and all manner of telling the loved one So long, see you never. This learned and relevant treatment is a unique and deeply researched addition to the literature of broken hearts.’ Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

'… an eye-opening study of wartime romances and breakups.' Publishers Weekly

'Carruthers makes a convincing case that the Dear John letter has helped make women, not war, the culprit for love’s breakdown under pressure.' Charlotte Gray, The Wall Street Journal

‘Her account offers insights into a broader entanglement, involving the militarism that shores up modern nationhood; the emotional and sexual ties that sustain and can destroy men in the military; and the women on whom male soldiers have poured hatred as well as adoration.’ Julia Laite, London Review of Books

‘As Carruthers explains, Dear John letters can be hard to find in archives. Recipients of these devastating messages were not necessarily inspired to retain them. To the extent that any such letters remain, they are generally scattered about in various collections of personal papers, as opposed to constituting their own collection. In light of these challenges, Carruthers’ research is even more impressive.’ Natalie Shibley, War in History

From the Publisher