An unflinching, powerful memoir by Simone Gorrindo, whose essays have appeared in the New York Times and New York magazine, The Wives is both an intimate, vulnerable portrait of a marriage and an important depiction of the sacrifice and bravery of military spouses.
In 2012, at the age of 28, a newly married Gorrindo left behind her dream job as an editor in New York to become an army wife in Georgia, giving up "career, friends, more than a decade of history." Her husband, Andrew, had never been able to shake off his desire to join the military. After couples therapy and many hard conversations, they headed off to enter a life that would prove to be alien and challenging, particularly for Gorrindo, who did not have army training to lose herself in.
Gorrindo's writing is evocative and immersive as she captures the many complexities of military life, such as the constant fear of receiving bad news and the debilitating loneliness caused by her husband's frequent deployments and the hierarchies of her new social circles. Gorrindo found herself in a community that was very different, culturally and politically, from anything she was used to. "I hadn't found a place here," she reflects, "or had not yet figured out how to fit into the place I had made."
With fearlessness and brutal honesty, Gorrindo invites readers into an exclusive, hidden world. She brings to life the strong, complicated women who became her found family and celebrates the loyal bonds of the sisterhood that ultimately rescued her from some of her darkest moments. --Grace Rajendran, freelance reviewer