The 200 Word Book Review // The Last Repatriate by Matthew Salesses

RYAN - They say you can’t go home again. That’s typically true, especially when it was war that called you away in the first place. For anyone who has ever left their childhood comforts to experience the world at large, The Last Repatriate will offer a glimpse into an experience both familiar and, thankfully, completely alien as it traces Teddy’s release from a Korean POW camp and troubled return to his hometown in Virginia.

It wasn’t the torture Teddy endured that struck me (although it’s visceral and engaging). It wasn’t his struggle process the things he had done to stay alive (although such a struggle is what makes great stories great). It was that simple confirmation that home is never what we remember. It was how the story echoed my own periodical returns to the town in which I grew up, a strange and different place that pays but a cursory attention to the fact that I’ve left, I’ve gone, and I’m not the same anymore. It was the way the narrator used an inclusive “we” to make me a part of the story as he describes the scene (“We can tell his thoughts are on home…”).

In making his account of a damaged Korean War POW relatable to a sheltered boy from Indiana, Salesses succeeded where almost any other writer might not. His is a heartfelt tale that taps into our collective desire for a home we love (but might never see), and it only takes an hour or two to enjoy. Don’t miss this one.

Buy The Last Repatriate at Nouvella now. 

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