As we continue to live through a 24-hour news cycle that moves at breakneck speed from one international conflict to the next, the Iraq War can feel like a distant memory. Helen Benedict's The Soldier's House (Red Hen Press; 223 pages) offers a poignant reminder of the devastation rendered by a senseless war that killed and displaced millions, which was promptly shelved in our memories while our politicians push forward into the next ill-advised conflict.
The Soldier's House opens with loss, both tangible and symbolic. Naema, her son Tariq, and her mother-in-law Hibah arrive in upstate New York as refugees from the Iraq War. They've lost their innocence. Many of their family members have been killed. And the airline lost their luggage. "Please, I pray to the baggage chute, please don't swallow the last of what we have," Naema begs. It's a sign that life in a new country will be a Sisyphean struggle. The family's arrival in the States was facilitated by Sergeant Jimmy Donnell—wracked with remorse over the death of his translator, Naema's husband Khalil—and Kate Brady, Jimmy's wife and fellow soldier. One problem: Kate's gone, and Jimmy doesn't know why she left or where she went.
Necessity and guilt bind Naema and Jimmy, and they serve as the novel’s two main narrators, alternating between first- and third-person perspectives. While Jimmy feels responsible for supporting Naema's family, and Naema knows living with him is her only option, their narratives generally run parallel; Jimmy is preoccupied with his missing wife, while Naema is intent on finding work and securing a prosthetic leg for Tariq. The story also skillfully uses third-person narration that loops in Jimmy's brothers to show how they carry their own war-related wounds, and at times offers an omniscient perspective that opens a window into how people from different cultures interact and how everyone is affected by Kate's absence.
The third-person narration also brings Khalil into the story through flashbacks. He acts as the north star, uniting the wartime storylines of both Naema and Jimmy. Benedict chooses to insert scenes with Khalil directly following important interactions between Jimmy and Naema that serve as flashpoints in their relationship. It's a reminder that, as soon as Naema and Jimmy grow closer (or experience conflict), they are bound by Khalil's choices, and he won't be forgotten. Had Khalil been defined only through memories rather than in scene, it would have created a different mood for the story that wouldn't fit the intended tone. Jimmy and Naema cannot coexist without constantly being reminded of what they lost. The flashbacks are also effective at offering a different, higher-stakes pace from the principal storyline.
Benedict writes in a journalistic prose seeped in unflinching realism; it eschews flowery descriptions and euphemisms, grounding the story more closely in line with the subject matter as it documents the personal and collective destruction wrought by a futile war. The dialogue is purposeful and blunt, fitting for characters who lack answers. Naema and Tariq have a strong command of English, but Naema’s dialogue also reflects an outsider’s difficulty with American idioms and the nuances that can be lost across cultures. The direct prose and dialogue also offer the characters no easy answers or excuses for their conduct or decision-making. Save for Tariq, there are no clear victories that serve to uplift our spirits and mask the harsh truths of war. As Jimmy observes late in the book, "We can't undo these things, can we? We just have to find a way to live with them."
While documenting both a refugee family’s adjustment to a new country and a soldier’s struggle to return to civilian life, the question of Kate threads the story together. We get few leads about her disappearance. Rather than urging us to solve a mystery, it creates a looming tension, the feeling that another shoe still needs to drop. It might seem disappointing to readers who want to be given clues to solve her disappearance, rather than experiencing the nagging dread of not knowing.
Benedict notes in the Acknowledgments that The Soldier's House is intended to be the second in a trilogy, following 2011's Sand Queen (Soho Press; 304 pages). The Soldier's House can easily be read as a standalone story, but those who've read Sand Queen will have more information about Kate, which might blunt the book's mystery. Conversely, some readers of The Soldier's House might feel put off by the lack of firm outcome for these characters, though there's certainly enough physical and emotional forward progress to avoid feeling like their struggles are pointless or without resolution.
Ultimately, though the story can at times feel like an unrelenting struggle, the book still treats each character and hardship with plenty of compassion and keeps us engaged. The narrative feels more like a documentary, highlighting the devastation left behind by a pointless war rather than granting its actors realized dreams or fairy-tale endings. An escape, it is not. But it serves as a stark and passionate reminder of the enduring toll of a misguided conflict in the Middle East, which feels particularly prescient.
You can purchase The Soldier’s House from Red Hen Press, bookshop.org, and other retailers.
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