The questionable health-care and housing conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center serve as the inspiration for Blue Stars, which imagines the experiences of two very different families brought together at Reed by their wounded soldiers.
Ellen Silverman, a literature professor at the University of Wisconsin, is the widowed mother of adult children Jane and Wesley and legal guardian of Michael, a high-school friend of Wesley. At Jane's 19th-birthday dinner, Michael offhandedly mentions that he's enlisted in the Marines. Jane is simply furious, while Ellen's responses to his departure for training and later deployment to Afghanistan are more complicated. When Michael's foot is nearly blown off and he's shipped to Walter Reed, Ellen knows she has to go to him, but she's unsure what else will be expected of her.
Personal trainer Lacey Diaz is married to an Army Reserve captain and most of her friends in the Bronx are fellow "mil-wives" ready to support their troops and one another. Once Eddie ships off to Iraq, Lacey learns the hard way that much of the official support system for military families is sadly inadequate. By the time Eddie winds up at Reed, brain-injured and blinded, Lacey has grown accustomed to working the system, but the hospital presents a new set of challenges.
Emily Gray Tedrowe (Commuters) takes her time with Ellen and Lacey's individual experiences until the women meet at the hospital. Their alliance soon grows into a friendship, the kind that blooms in shared adversity. Blue Stars is a timely and engrossing novel of the challenges faced--and connections formed--on the home front during wartime. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness