Bringing Vincent Home

In the summer of 1969, Kitty Duvall learns that her son Vincent has been wounded in Vietnam and is being evacuated to the burn ward at Brooke Army Medical Center.  She leaves her home in Baltimore, where she has been holding steady for the sake of her family, and takes her place at Vincent's bedside.  From her perspective on the burn ward, at the painful heart of a military hospital, Kitty tells a story of profound wounding, medical heroics, death, and survival.  Vincent is a soldier in a particualr war, during a particularly turbulent period in history, and yet Kitty's reflections on what it takes to tend to wounds--physical, emotional, spirtitual, and political--will resonate for readers in the present day. 

Though a novel, Bringing Vincent Home reads like the finest memoir, so authentic and convincing that at times I found myself turning back to the title page to be sure it was a work of fiction.  Rarely does a book of any sort touch me as this one did.  Madeleine Mysko has created a vivid, beautifully written, and deeply personal piece of literature. 

--Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato (National Book Award winner)

As more and more soldiers are injured and disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan, as more and more families are called upon to tend to or bury their loved ones, Mysko's novel comes not only as a wake-up call but also as a soothing balm.  This is a viscerally wrought and redemptive tale, difficult to put down, and impossible to shake from memory. 

--Cortney Davis, Leopold's Maneuvers and Taking Care of Time; Editor, Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose  by  Nurses