Book Review: Falling Through the Earth by Danielle Trussoni

Virtually anyone alive during the Vietnam War will acknowledge its impact on American politics and society and, if honest, themselves. Yet as Danielle Trussoni's memoir, Falling Through the Earth, demonstrates, there are persons not alive then for whom the war became an intimate part of their lives.

Trussoni's father, Dan, was a "tunnel rat" in Vietnam. He was among those "two parts stubborn, one part insane" men who ventured into and searched the mazes of tunnels the Viet Cong used to hide, transfer men and material, and as a base of operations. Dan Trussoni was wounded both physically and emotionally in that task. Danielle and her family suffered the effects of the latter wounds.

Dan Trussoni engages in serial affairs following his marriage after the war. Combined with his drinking and temperament, it leads to divorce from Danielle's mom. Although life would be more normal and stable, Danielle doesn't join her brother and sister in staying with Mom. Instead, she decides to live with her father. From the outset, it is clear it isn't just the similarity in names that makes her her father's daughter. They are "we," standing together against the rest of the world. "[W]e were on the run," she says in the opening sentence. "We'd been picked up twice for drunk driving that year. .... We tried to keep a low profile, but the cops knew our truck and where we lived[.]"

That is just a sample of the father who makes up half of a dysfunctional unit. This is a father who has no compunction about taking his young daughter to Roscoe's, his local tavern of choice, and having her sit at the bar with him while he drinks and engages in brawls. This is a father who lets his daughter fall asleep to the sounds of him making love to the series of women he brings home from the bars. This is a father who, when he finally slips a Hallmark card under her door, writes on it, "If it doesn't kill you, it will make you strong."

The memoir takes us back and forth to before and after the divorce, various stages in her life and her own trip to Vietnam at age 24. Trussoni punctuates early passages with the language of battle to illustrate how the war remained alive in her own life. Moonlight "cluster-bombed" the walls in her home. Sunlight "strafed" the bars over a window in her hotel in Vietnam, creating a "barrage" comprised of "the colors of explosion."

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

Visit Tim Gebhart's author page — Tim Gebhart's Blog