Invisible WoundsA passionate, penetrating novel of trauma, grief, guilt, and faith. Daniel Dunn is the son of wealthy New York parents. He is unable to get along with his highly successful but hard-drinking father. Dunn flees to the faraway university setting of the Sorbonne in Paris. He is mistaken as a bank robber and must choose between prison and the French Foreign Legion. He chooses the Legion and is sent to war-ravaged Algeria. The Muslims are revolting against French colonialism while rebellious officers and men of the French Army have risen in opposition to their commanders in Paris in support of the Europeans. Dunn is traumatized by the torture and killing of innocents. Crazed, he himself shoots civilians. He returns home emotionally shaken after his five-year enlistment. He remains an orphan from his father and lost in society. He is drinking himself to death but finally finds a home in the Marine Corps and serves two tours in Vietnam. Dunn returns to the States ravaged by the nightmarish anguish and horrific guilt of killing in combat. He meets a Sicilian puppeteer who, in her broken English, begins to bring him back to normality. They fall in love and marry. The tiny young woman fills Dunn with forgiveness, faith, and final peace. This novel is based on actual events. Jack Casserly covered Algeria and Vietnam as a war correspondent and centers much of the book on his own experiences. He interviewed various legionaries and many GIs suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He later discussed his findings with psychiatrists who added to the conclusions. All told him that he had done his homework well. So the novel is quite authentic--not only in terms of military combat but post-traumatic stress disorder at home in the States--at 9/ |
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