Far From the War

Jeffrey David Payne

Publisher: Roche Harbor Books

Tentative Publish Date: September 17, 2011

Format: Paperback review copy.  (Thanks Roche Harbor Books!)

Series: Far From the War

“Your roommates have not arrived yet.”

“Great.  Then I’m calling top bunk.”

“We don’t have bunk beds here.  Only the Senate pages do.”

“Then I will call nothing, I guess.”

Trevor tucked the clipboard under his arm and straightened himself, looking down at her from a steep angle.  “Would you like help with these items?”

“Are you offering, Trev?”

“Yes, I am,” he said dryly, still unwilling to be amused.

“I would love some help.  Take this one.  It’s the heaviest.”

“I don’t mind that.  I wanted the heaviest one.”

“Chivalry and all that?”

“I’m not Catholic.”

“What?”

“Chivalry is for knights and knights were all Catholic and I’m not Catholic.”

Esther Casey lives on Orcas Island.  This is off the coast of Washington.  She earned the right to become a page for the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C. by submitting an essay and being nominated by Congressman Kamerlin.  The page program is pretty strict with strict rules.  You earn 15 demerits and you are sent home.  One morning, while in the page house, tanks moving into Washington D.C. were heard and woke everyone up and following that, were the introduction of Marines who were assigned to the pages as security.   The pages try to keep doing their assignments as normal, but this is difficult when there is military in Washington D.C.  When the president, who has left the capital, declares war against the military already in the cities across the U.S., Esther, along with other pages, decide it is time to leave.  They try to leave via Reagan National Airport, but airports are closing due to the war.  She ends up making her trek across the U.S. with her friend, Gwen Farmer.

“Dad, all the minority pages are still here, except for Rachel.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“She e-mailed me once or twice, but not really.”

“What did she say?”

“She just called me a whore and told me to stay in touch, typical Rachel stuff.”

“Did you call her a whore back?”

“I certainly did.  I think I called her a strumpet, though.   I like to switch it up.”

“I know you do…”

I really liked this novel.  At first, I wasn’t too sure about it but then after I started to read it, I got hooked.  The way the novel was written, it is easy to understand what was happening and the emotions the characters were feeling. I found myself believing that Esther and her friends were really in the middle of a Civil War.  I was always wondering what would happen next and would she get to Orcas Island.  I could easily see the confusion between the two sides, the Arnies and the Pinkos, and see how both sides thought they were in the right.  An astounding read, Payne really surpassed my expectations and I cannot wait to read more from him.

A man behind them in line grew impatient.  “Move along ladies.  You’re holding up the line.”

“Let’s go,” he said again after Esther persisted in ignoring him.

Esther wheeled around to face him, startling him.  “We will get out of line when we have concluded our business and not one second earlier and if I hear so much as a peep out of you in the meantime, I will hit you so hard you will forget what time zone you’re in.  Don’t you frickin’ doubt that for a second.  A sigh, a whisper, a mumble and your lights are going out.  You got that douchebag?  You got that douchebag’s hot Asian wife?”

The hot Asian wife reached out one of her manicured hands and touched Esther on the shoulder.

“Thank you,” she mouthed sincerely.

Economic ruin and partisan rancor have pushed America to the brink of a new civil war. Esther is caught in the middle, serving as a page in the United States House of Representatives when rogue politicians and military leaders stage a modern day coup d’état. When the coup turns violent, she abandons Washington, D.C. for home. She must learn to survive on her own as transportation and financial networks fail, as the war disrupts food and water supplies. The result is a cautionary tale about political extremism and the true cost of war.

“What are you doing with such a great big house with all these rooms anyway?”

“Oh, it’s not mine personally.  The deal is my mom and dad bought it and then told me I had to live in it with them.  When I’m emancipated and what-not, I might get my own place or something, but until then I just sort of hang with the fam…”

*Esther’s witty humor in this book.  From reading it, she seems like a person that I would like to know.  I tried to portray that in the quotes that I chose for this review, but alas, it has not done the book justice.  Some of the things that Esther says, I have incorporated into my vernacular.

*The experiences that are told in this book during the war are some that you would expect and some that I didn’t even think about.  It makes the story seem more real.  As if you were really stuck in the middle of a Civil War trying to get back home to Orcas Island.

*Esther doesn’t use her social standing as a crutch.  She is from a wealthy family and she doesn’t act like that is all that matters and will get her anything she needs.

*Esther doesn’t follow the social norms of the pages – liking Gwen for a friend even though they were on opposite parties in the page house – and stays true to who she is even amidst all the turmoil.

*The references to Ferris Bueller.  I LOVED that movie!!

*Matthew.  He seems like a good match for Esther.  It will be interesting to see how this series plays out.

“On Orcas, you can get olive oil drizzled on top of your clam chowder, but you cannot get this.  You cannot get a sausage-like substance and an egg-like circle sandwiched between two bread-like discs with cheese.”

“This is vile and you’re sick and wrong,” Gwen said.

*The cover.  I am one who usually “judges a book by the cover” and if a book doesn’t have a good cover, I won’t necessarily give it a chance.  I understand the reasoning for the cover; I just thought it was a little drab.  Stories about war are not supposed to be colorful, I guess.

*Colin.  I just do not like his character. 

“This isn’t a skanky ho joint, is it?” Esther asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Just know going in, that at no point during the evening will I drop it, pop it or lock it.”

“No,” Matthew said.  “Please don’t do any of those things.  They frighten me.”