Don’t Duck And Cover

All Manner Of Things by Susie Finkbeiner is a heart-wrenching Christian historical novel focusing on a family affected by war. The action is set in 1967 during the Vietnam War but families are still reeling from the Korean War. I do not normally cry over books but I cried over this one. It is beautifully written and I ‘felt’ included in the family as the book is written in the first person from the point of view of eighteen year old Annie.

The novel is a microcosm for the macrocosm of American families affected by war. It is a close knit family and community that laughs together, lives together and cries together. In some ways life in 1967 was far simpler but in many ways it was so much harder.

War hurts. It hurts civilians. It hurts the forces and it hurts God. “I can’t believe that God created us for all this death and destruction… War wasn’t His idea.” The reader becomes acquainted with the thoughts and fears of both the servicemen and those on the home front as part of the novel is in the form of letters to and from Vietnam to various family members. The servicemen were brave young men who ‘did it afraid’ as they answered the call to serve their country. “You gotta just look to God… When I get scared, it’s about the only thing I can do.” God was alongside those serving and those at home at all times, even if He seemed silent. He never left His children alone.