Snake's Daughter

“Destiny assigns the daughters of fallen soldiers the most painful duty, to transform the eternally accumulating sorrows of war into a healing sense of peace, recovery, and reunion. After these many years of America's half-hearted reconciliations, public and private, Gail Gilberg closes the circle on the Vietnam era and our fragmented culture's long convalescence, providing in once and for all with terminal punctuation. I can't imagine any reader not being profoundly moved by Snake's Daughter.”—Bob Shacochis

“For one born into one army family and married into another, Gail Hosking Gilberg's reminders of turbulent and stressful times as well as beloved locations come through vividly and poignantly. She brought two fascinating people into our lives: Sergeant Snake Hosking and his daughter Gail. They will both remain with the reader long after the book has been finished.”—Joanne Holbrook Patton

“Gilberg's eye for detail, her patient and informed study of her father's photographs, reward the reader, allowing him or her to enter into the most personal of Gilberg's musings and thereby to feel like a participant, not an eavesdropper. The fundamental damage done to Gilberg's life was her father's death in 1967; he died a hero, but in many ways was no such thing to his wife and daughters. A mother now herself, Gilberg wrestles with the implications of her father's choice: of country over family, duty over responsibility. What makes Snake's Daughter so worthwhile is the degree to which Gilberg focuses on the largest possible questions, spinning out from her cocoon of personal drama to include not only all war babies but all who have suffered from a missing parent, regardless of circumstances…This is artfully and indelibly written, and in it are posed the fundamental questions of Snake's Daughter. This is not a book merely about Vietnam or a Vietnam daughter; this is a testament to how loss permeates the fabric of everyday living, tattooing us with questions we can never rub off…a strong and thoughtful journey into the power of what we remember, and what we need to remember.”—Joe Bonomo, Georgia Review