I'll Be Seeing You
Readers of Hayes and Nyhan’s entertaining epistolary novel will be transported to 1940s America, when people on the home front watched, waited, and worried about loved ones fighting overseas. Two women, separated by age, circumstances, and geography, find each other through a 4-H address exchange for war wives. Their correspondence reveals that Glory, from well-off New England society, is a young mom who “went from debutante to war bride,” while the more practical Rita is a professor’s wife who lives in the heartland and has both a husband and a grown son in the armed forces. Authentic touches bring the era alive. Allusions to sharing an easy recipe that “doesn’t touch the sugar ration,” recycling tinfoil, anti-German bigotry, blacked-out portions of censored V-mail, and victory gardens all provide a specific, everyday context for such timeless and universal passages and struggles as birth, death, grief, wartime temptations, divided loyalties, and hope. Interspersed is correspondence with the men in service, adding layers to Hayes and Nyhan’s deeply satisfying tale. --Whitney Scott