Neverhome

“Neverhome” is filled with strong female characters, each one pushing, pulling, or holding Ash/Constance as she leaves the hell of the Civil War, insane asylums, and the road home filled with friends and foes.

Although we learn in the very first sentence that Ash is leaving for war, it isn't until near the end of the book that we learn why. Earlier in the book, Ash describes how strong and able her mother was. So strong that she defends a neighbor woman when the townspeople came after her.

It is only later that we learn Ash's mother ran from that confrontation and that it was Ash who defended the neighbor with a gun, then accompanied her across state lines. So, is it any surprise that it is Ash who feels she must defend her home, her neighbor's homes, and, by extension, the Union?

We also learn during Ash's travels that the sight of a blood-stained slave manacle haunted her, so perhaps she was also an abolitionist at heart, although she never explicitly says.

The structure of “Neverhome” loosely follows Homer's “The Odyssey” in three parts. Ash is a freed Penelope, who goes to war in place of her husband. Ash's mother is a bit like Athena, guiding Ash throughout much of the early parts of the book, with Ash taking up the war maiden's scepter. Ash is healed by Neva and nearly stays with her, much like the stay on Circe's island. However, Neva turns on Ash when Ash decides to return to the front and has her thrown into an insane asylum, similar to Charybdis. It is only by disguises that Ash evades death time and again, much like Odysseus.

Ash returns home to find her husband serving tea to squatters, similar to the suitors Odysseus finds after a long absence. Both proceed to slay the interlopers, but Ash ends up killing her husband by accident, whereas Penelope survives.

It is this particular bit of plot I found a bit troublesome. Ash feels less like a woman after losing their son, so the war provides her an escape from failure. She can embrace the things she's best at, including outshooting and outsoldiering most men. Yet, the letters to and from are filled with love on both sides. So, when she orders her husband to get her mother's gun to help kill the squatters, how does she forget and shoot her husband?

Was Bartholomew real, or Ash's other side that she runs from when duty calls (perhaps tearing herself in two like the country)? I can't be sure. Similarly, did Ash steal from other soldier's knapsacks or not?! This is an unreliable narrator I can get behind unlike so many of the recent girl/woman popcorn characters wallowing in various substances.

Each chapter is relatively short and reminded me of what a soldier in the Civil War might have been writing home. Unlike the pacing in Dan Brown's garbage “The DaVinci Code,” these short chapters move from the excitement of a new adventure to the horrors of war to fever dreams to torture without losing anything, all the while keeping Ash's distinctive voice.