Lizzie's War

A family epic laced with authenticity, wit and unforgettable characters. Liz O'Reilly has a husband in Vietnam, 4 kids under the age of 12 (and one on the way), and a burgeoning crush on the family priest. An unconventional love story.

It's Summer 1967 and Mike O'Reilly's just shipped out to Vietnam. Liz O'Reilly is trying to keep it all together for their four kids – 6 year old Deb–Deb (who believes she is an otter), 8 year old Angus, Kathie, (who at age 9 helps to integrate the local Blue Bird troop with her best friend Temperance), and 11 year old Danny – the spitting image of Mike. While Mike is off fighting "his" war, Liz struggles with her own desires and yearnings – to pick up the theatre career she abandoned when Danny was born, to care for the four children she loves fiercely yet also occasionally resents, to leave the backdoor unlocked so she always has an escape route. While set during the conflict in Vietnam, Farrington's novel captures the other side of any war – that of the war at home and the careening emotions of the spouses and families left behind.

A stunning new novel from the author of the beloved The Monk Downstairs —hailed by critics and readers alike as "captivating" and "enthralling" (—Books & Culture) and "tender [and] witty" (—The New York Times Book Review).

Elizabeth O'Reilly, the wife of a career Marine Corps officer and mother of four children (with one on the way), finds herself at odds with just about everything in her life. Having seen her husband off to Vietnam, she's left to contend with her own desires and yearnings —trying to care for her children while longing to pick up the theater career she abandoned for the demands of motherhood.

Liz finds solace in a friendship with Father Ezekiel Germaine, a war veteran and eccentric priest with an appreciation for irony, and in the wary camaraderie of Betty Simmons, another military housewife, whose cocktails help Liz take the edge off.

While Liz struggles with the vicissitudes of life on the home front, her husband, Captain Michael O'Reilly, commands an infantry company in Vietnam. Mike has no illusions about the glamour and glory of war; he is a man who understands the meaning of fighting for his country and has made his peace with it for better and for worse.

In the end, though, it is Lizzie's war. And it is Liz O'Reilly, a complex woman wrestling with conflicting commitments, loyalties, and sympathies, who is the heart of the novel. Beginning with the Detroit riots in the summer of 1967 and ending on Labor Day weekend, 1968, Lizzie's War is a vivid chronology of that watershed time in America intertwined with the personal histories of the O'Reilly family. Portraying the ravages of war as well as the dark humor of a soldier navigating life in the trenches, the clash of a mother's everyday duties with her unspoken desires, and the age-old conflict between God and humanity, Lizzie's War is an unforgettable family epic. What also emerges is a genuine love story. Liz O'Reilly and her unexpected war will linger long after the last page is turned.

The New Yorker

Farrington’s urgent, moving narrative turns the war novel on its head. It’s 1967, and while Mike O’Reilly, a career marine, is getting shot at in Vietnam, his wife, Lizzie, is dodging domestic shrapnel: she’s two months into an unplanned pregnancy, she flinches every time the doorbell rings, and her four children, at school, are hearing that their father is a baby-killer. While Mike’s active-duty letters, full of mud and gore, form part of the story, it is Farrington’s unsparing account of Lizzie’s life at home—the desperately untidy house, her small attempts to carve out time for herself, her mounting anxiety—that takes the novel beyond its particular time and place and makes it a captivating study of tenderness and blame.

Tim Farrington is the author of the highly acclaimed novels The California Book of the Dead and Blues for Hannah. His stories and essays have appeared in The Sun, ZYZZYVA, and San Francisco magazine.