In the News
Interviews with Jessica in Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News, Stars and Stripes,
Read book tour coverage in Desert Dispatch (Ft Irwin, CA),
The News Tribune (Ft Lewis, WA)

Reviews
to submit comments or a review, please send to info@survivingdeployment.com

At its heart, A Year of Absence is not about Iraq or even about war. It is about perseverance, love, and camaraderie on the homefront. This is a story that urgently needs to be told, and I cannot imagine it being conveyed with more compassion or eloquence than it is in this incredible book.
— Andrew Carroll, author of Behind the Lines and editor of War Letters

Since The Illiad, soldiers’ lives have been celebrated and bemoaned as the toughest imaginable. But Redmond’s new book, A Year of Absence: Six Women’s Stories of Courage, Hope, and Love, explores what every soldier’s wife knows, but few outside the military culture comprehend: how much long separations and anxiety test the strongest, most self-sufficient and resilient wives.
— Stars and Stripes Oct 9, 2005 whole story

These are stories that need to be told. A Year of Absence finally gives voice to the very intimate and private struggles of military wives. It's hard not to cry as you read through these stories of wives fighting to keep sane as their husbands fight in the Iraq War. Their stories of battles with alcoholism and depression, marital strife, struggles to raise young children alone, and the constant worry that their husbands would be killed during their 15-month deployment are heartbreaking.
— Yvonne Latty, author of We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans from World War II to the War in Iraq

Redmond provides us an unflinching look at military wives (and by extension families) during their hardest challenge and reminds us again that there are heroes on the home front too.  A Year of Absence deserves a wide audience.
— Tom Miller, Military.com Review

Jessica Redmond’s riveting new book opens a panoramic and long-overdue window into the lives of the spouses and children left behind…Jessica walks us gingerly through the minefields of marriages teetering on the rocks, the frustrations of infrequent communication with Iraq, family medical emergencies, and the confusion of befuddled toddlers who could not understand why they no longer had a Dad.…As the lives of these women and their families come into sharp focus through Redmond’s writing, it becomes clear that the men’s deployment to the literal battlefield in Iraq has spawned parallel battlefields back home in the lives of the women they were forced to leave behind. Some of those battles were waged between spouses, while others were fought silently within the confines of the women's hearts and souls.
— Al Chase, The White Rhino Report Review

In A Year of Absence, author Jessica Redmond skillfully parades out a cast of six endearing characters stationed at Baumholder, Germany, whose husbands deployed to Iraq in 2003. Some of the women are our ages, others the ages of our daughters. Redmond's deft narration and always telling insights causes us to cheer for them all. Including Redmond, who casually reveals in the author's notes that her own husband was deployed as she researched and wrote the book. As the daughter of a soldier-killed-in-action, I know the pain of war doesn't stop when the bombing ends. No slumber is ever again as peaceful. No peace is ever again as restful. Death on the battlefield may be the ultimate sacrifice, but it isn't the only costly one demanded of our nation's military families. Redmond allows readers to see that life on the homefront is often an equally savage battle.
— Karen Spears Zacharias, author of Hero Mama

This is a powerful book of real women with real life situations while their husbands are serving our country, doing what they have to do.
— Connie Anderson, Armchair Interviews Review

This book provides an important window for anyone who wants to understand those who are left at home and valuable empathy to other spouses of deployed soldiers.
— Dr. Margaret C. Harrell, Senior Social Scientist and Associate Director of the Forces and Resources Policy Center in the RAND National Defense Research Institute and author of Invisible Women: Junior Enlisted Army Wives

A Year of Absence offers a compelling and heart-felt look at the real-life experiences of the military spouse. People from all walks of life should read this book to understand what personal sacrifice really means.
— MilitaryWives.com Inc

A Year of Absence Press Page
 
Now Available at a bookstore near you or order online at Amazon.com
or direct from the publisher: 651-357-8770 or fax 501.641.0777 or email orders@elvaresa.com