Waiting for Eden

Starred review from July 30, 2018
A National Book Award finalist for Dark at the Crossing, former Marine Ackerman tells the heartbreaking story of a relationship caught up in the aftermath of war. Eden and Mary are happily married with a child on the way when Eden is deployed for his second tour in Iraq. After an accident leaves Eden’s best friend dead and Eden barely alive, he returns home on a stretcher covered in severe burns and is unable to return to the life he’d led before. Mary, meanwhile, cares for their infant daughter and must wrestle with the hard decision of whether to take Eden off of life support. She is full of resentment and guilt, unable to forgive herself for letting him leave for war. Eden’s best friend narrates—caught in limbo between this world and the next—and hovers over their lives, connecting to both in unexpected ways. He offers a bird’s-eye view of the pain and suffering of both Mary and Eden as they struggle separately to make peace with Eden’s imminent death. This is a deeply touching exploration of resentment, longing, and loss among those who volunteer to fight and the loved ones left behind.

In a voice laden with a searching, understated intensity, MacLeod Andrews narrates this powerful account of three young souls broken by a war that forever splits them apart. Eden Malcolm has returned to the U.S. from Iraq so severely wounded he's unable to move or communicate. His wife visits every day, still wondering why he insisted on a second deployment, especially when he knew she was pregnant. And his best friend and fellow Marine tells the story from the grave. This audiobook, part romance, part ghost story, is a serious examination of the emotional toll of modern warfare. Andrews's careful pacing and natural delivery find meaning and wisdom in every well-structured, poetic sentence. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

February 1, 2019

Ackerman's (2017 National Book Award finalist for Dark at the Crossing) latest might be just three and a half hours long, but the dramatic effects will surely last longer. MacLeod Andrews--his voice slightly growly, controlled enough as if control is necessary--narrates from the omniscient viewpoint of a dead man, waiting for his best friend to die. Eden Malcolm has been reduced to basically a 70-pound torso, trapped in a San Antonio burn center, sent home from Iraq after surviving an IED blast that killed his best friend--who now tells both their stories, along with that of Eden's wife, Mary, who's spent most of the past three years by his hospital bed. Before the latest deployment, before the explosion, Eden and Mary had been desperate to conceive, Mary more so because a baby was supposed to keep Eden home. Over the "days, weeks, months, years, lying there, not being allowed to just die," the three-part past, the two-part present, the solo future to come (albeit with child) get chillingly revealed--of love, hope, betrayal, desperation, dedication, and suffocation. VERDICT A superb novel further enhanced by an exemplary reader; a timely acquisition for all libraries. ["With sparse prose and a deft pen, Ackerman writes a profound meditation on the liminal space between our past, present, and future": LJ 9/1/18 starred review of the Knopf hc; 2018 LJ Best Literary Fiction.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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