Part One
From a Distance

There are some things you learn best in calm, some in storm. — Willa Cather

Prologue
1982

The way she saw it, some families were like well-tended parks, with pretty daffodil borders and big, sprawling trees that offered respite from the summer sun. Others— and this she knew firsthand— were battlefields, bloody and dark, littered with shrapnel and body parts.

She might only be seventeen, but Jolene Larsen already knew about war. She'd grown up in the midst of a marriage gone bad.

Valentine's Day was the worst. The mood at home was always precarious, but on this day, when the television ran ads for flowers and chocolates and red foil hearts, love became a weapon in her parents' careless hands. It started with their drinking, of course. Always. Glasses full of bourbon, refilled again and again. That was the beginning. Then came the screaming and the crying, the throwing of things. For years, Jolene ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide may contain spoilers!

1. In the prologue of Home Front, we see Jolene’s early life and the incident that leads up to her parents’ deaths. How does this scene lay the groundwork for her personality and her choices in the remainder of the book?
   


2. When Michael says, “I don’t love you anymore,” he wonders fleetingly if he’d said the words so that Jolene would fall apart or cry or say that she was in love with him. What does this internal question reveal about Michael? About Jolene?
   


3. When Jolene learns of her deployment, she is conflicted. She thinks that she wants to go (to war), but that she doesn’t want to leave (her family). Can you understand the dichotomy she is experiencing? Discuss a mother’s deployment and what it ...