The escape of the faculty wife

Spanning the decades from World War II to the Iraq War, then ten stories in this collection are grouped not by chronology, but by locale: campus, hilltown, barracks. One labled memoir, relies heavily on detailed recall. In the others, Hawkins has given his imagination free rein. While not, strictly speaking, history, the stories reveal something of the moods and emotions of the recent past, times alternately turbulent and tranquil.