Publisher's Synopsis
As a child, Ruth Clare didn't know her father was a Vietnam veteran. She didn't know people went to war and came back changed. What she knew, was that no matter how vigilant she was, or how desperately she tried to please, she always seemed to set off her father's anger. With a mother too scared to intervene when anger became violence, Ruth learnt to stand up for herself, and others, vowing never to allow the circumstance of her life to defeat her.
After becoming a parent, Ruth's fear of repeating the damaging patterns of her past with her own children ignited a need to understand more about the generational impacts of war. Weaving personal stories of veterans, and research into the overlap of trauma and domestic violence in military populations, Ruth shines a much-needed light on the heartbreaking price children of veterans can pay when a parent returns home from war.
This deeply moving, award-winning memoir gives a powerful voice to the far-reaching impacts of war, and the unrecognised sacrifice of families of veterans.
