Desk the Halls by Donna Alward

George and Amy are two lost souls. They are both in search of answers, they are both in search of a definitive truth from the past. A past too painful for being lived alone, in solitude; a past this one reclaiming to being told once and for all for bringing peace in the hearts of all the protagonists and for dis-veiling the truth: what happened in the remote past.

A past this one too terrible for bringing peace and light in hearts.

If you haven't never known a Veteran, he could be a veteran from the Vietnam war but also the most recent ones, in Desk the Halls by Donna Alward the story of a veteran of the First Gulf War, you can't understand. You can't understand the devastation of a soul, the black hole these wars create in normal boys, plenty of life, sunny, and with great life-projects, "before." Before the war, before to seeing the horror.

They return devastated from wars, and without a proper support, a good family behind them it will be a nightmare to cope with because what their eyes saw while they were in war is too much for everyone.

George lives now in Darling a little town located in Vermont, he has a job in a garden center, a house, dignity. 

But his life, after what happened in war at his best mate Ian meant later to him a homeless life, a life spent without any purpose but constantly feeling a sensation of profound guiltiness: George hasn't been in grade to save his best mate from that death.

Ian to him like also Amy, Ian's twin sister and also their parents were an idyllic "picture, painting" to him.
They were perfect.
They were united.
They were a family.
George would have wanted to be like them: someone loved by someone else because part of a family, a sensation this one George never lived.
He didn't have a family, and to him just looking at Ian and Amy's family, just being part of their life as a friend meant the life.

When the two friends, George and Ian left for Iraq they joked about a possible return for Christmas, but then...
There was just horror: sufferance, self-punishment through alcohol and a gypsy life lived in the streets as a homeless for George, desperation for a terrible loss for Ian's family.

There was a black hole in George's soul.

Impossible to think... An adorable past, a perfect past with people genuinely in love for him and vice versa.
Their smiles, their laughs, their spontaneity, their being together and their living life with lightness, joy, projection for a radiant future. All gone in a second.
The shadows of the past too horrible because the change too unexpected, traumatic. Present a desert-land of feelings, friendship, love, expectations. Present didn't exist anymore. Life didn't exist anymore.

This long night over at some point, George saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and now thanks to the help of Laurel the owner of the garden center and her new husband Aiden, George has a new life, new friends, dignity and just this normality is very precious because abnormal in his errand existence.

Dignity, a decent pay, a house where to return. A stability. A new fresh start.

He was creating a Christmas wreath when Amy stopped by at the store and George looking at her and at her eyes returned with the mind at his remote past, that past he was running away desperately because George knew what happiness meant and what also meant to lose it.

Amy, the sunny twin of Ian, Amy the girl plenty of life and expectations, Amy the girl he kissed before to leave from Iraq, when life was normal and before that horror.

Amy knows that the man she will meet is probably very different from the past one. After all they are both grown-ups. She has her own past made also by private sufferance and a divorce.

At first she finds in George a wall, in terms of communication. George doesn't want to communicate, doesn't want to tell what happened to Ian but maybe Amy will be in grade through an inclusive Christmas to restore much better George's life, letting him appreciate the little things of life unlocking the door of his soul. In search of answers but also for finding something else.

What I also love the most in this book is the sensation that George is not being left behind.
George is very helped by everyone.
By Laurel and her husband, by their friends, by Amy, and not only: thanks to Amy George will understand that self-punishment is not necessary, and every life is important and deserves to be lived.
Mostly if this life is the one of a survivor. That one a sign.

This book is a powerful message for sharing our love, for helping others, for being good and inclusive people for open our interior and exterior doors to others, for understanding them and for create new conditions for bettering the existence of people with problematic, like the ones of the veterans can be but also of people who lived a lot of traumatic facts and unfortunately our reality is plenty of these situations. Quakes, terrorist attacks, devastation of various genres, we can see it in a daily base How can we forget what happened to Las Vegas for example? You mustn't be a veteran for devastate your mind and soul with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder  the so-called PTSD. Or better: not necessarily. Undoubtedly it helps a lot unfortunately.
In a world like this one, it's important a constant support from communities and people and listening. Through the listening, through dialogues, a lot of problems can be healed.

I truly suggest this novel by Donna Alward to everyone as a gift and a book to treasure forever and to read and re-read.

I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this wonderful eBook!


Anna Maria Polidori