Amazon.com (ISBN 0805057749, Hardcover)

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Stewart O'Nan's book A World Away is a graceful exploration of a family facing a series of devastating events. Stripped of the ideal touchstones of domestic life--an accepting community, fidelity, a country at peace--the Langers take up temporary residence in Long Island with James's dying father. There each family member drifts into emotional isolation, fueled by uncertainty and worry. At the center of the storm is James, a former high school teacher "on the wrong side of fifty" who has committed the classic middle-aged sin of falling in love with a student, and his wife, Anne, angry and resentful at having been emotionally erased. Their oldest son, Rennie, has finally enlisted and is now a medic on the Pacific front, while his younger brother, Jay, haunted by violent dreams, imagines Rennie's face on the body of every dead Newsreel soldier. Another newer, and not quite accepted, member of the family, Rennie's teenage war bride, Dorothy, brings a poignant edge to the novel as we follow her to San Diego where she lives, alone and frightened, waiting for the birth of their child.

O'Nan's clean prose is a pleasure to read, and he infuses his characters' world with a quiet sensitivity, deftly capturing their loneliness. A World Away is a gentle and thoroughly compassionate portrait of a family stunned by change, struggling to regain its balance and its heart. Just as the Langers have no way of knowing if Rennie will come home, they are even more uncertain if they can, or will, return to each other. --Marianne Painter