By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 21)
In Waiting for Eden, National Book Award finalist Elliot Ackerman offers a tragic love and war story that tugs at the heartstrings.
Eden is an Iraq War veteran who was all but killed when an improvised explosive device destroyed the Humvee in which he was riding.
Told from the vantage of his best friend who was killed in the blast, making it a ghost story of sorts, as well, we find Eden in a burn center in Texas where he has been hooked up to life support for three years.
In the blast, Eden lost all his extremities as well as his ability to talk. He has gone from the pinnacle of fitness as a Marine lance corporal weighing 220 pounds to a mere shell of a himself, weighing 70 pounds, and covered in scar tissue.
He is, we are told, the most wounded man in the history of war.
But Eden is not your average war story, or love story. As Ackerman tells it, Eden’s story is one of a young man who is caught up in the war, twisted by it even before the physical wounds, and finds that the only place he can cope or feel “normal” is in battle.
His life with his wife Mary, which began as a sweeping love story, finds her a victim, too, as is his best friend, who is waiting in a land of white light for Eden to cross over.
While it might seem counterintuitive that a narrative involving a semi-comatose man can be engrossing, Ackerman, who was nominated for the National Book Award for his critically acclaimed novel Dark at the Crossing, displays his writing craft magnificently.
Eden delves deeper and deeper into the minds and hearts of the wounded man, his best friend, and his wife. We become intimate partners in a suspenseful tale that reveals the deepest recesses of human lives, hopes, and dashed dreams.
Eden also acts as reminder of the effect of this nation’s never-ending wars, as victim counts continue to rise almost unacknowledged, with their detrimental effect on all of our lives, overtly and subtly, taking a toll that is too often brushed aside.
As Ackerman notes, the suffering of the world is in the individual, however we may wish to distance ourselves from its effects or our complicity. We are all victims and perpetrators, casualties of the wars we choose. We are all wounded.
Eden, a slender volume, is a masterful work, haunting and enduring.
Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.
Waiting for Eden is one of Lemuria’s November 2018 selections for its First Editions Club for Fiction. Signed first editions can be found here.
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