"In 1991, troops sent to Iraq for the first Gulf War returned home with a litany of physical, neurological, and psychological symptoms that collectively became known as Gulf War syndrome. Eisenberg bravely sheds light on the resultant devastation suffered by one small group of friends and their families...In a story that is, sadly, as pertinent as it is ageless, Eisenberg poignantly demonstrates that casualties of war occur both on and off the battlefield and ironically illustrates the vivid consequences when those in charge of veterans' postwar care fail to meaningfully 'support our troops'"--Booklist
When You Come Home is both a timeless love story and a timely political novel set in the year after the 1991 Gulf War. In the Gulf sands, surrounded by death and danger, marine reservist Anthony Bravo has thought only of Lily, the feisty orphan raised in his home, and when he comes home, their childhood affection flames into passionate love. Both have lost fathers to the Vietnam War, but now, safe and settled, they rejoice that war and loss are behind them at last. Or, so it seems. Soon Tony’s best friend, a career marine, suffers fevers and strange symptoms . . .
Blending war and politics with a human story, When You Come Home takes up a topic rare in American fiction, the First Gulf War and Gulf War syndrome, the disabling illness that followed a third of the troops home.