PURPLE HEART

Patricia McCormick writes a compelling story about the moral ambiguities of war. Matt Duffy is an 18-year-old soldier who is wrestling with memory loss as he tries to make sense of the events that landed him in the hospital and earned him the Purple Heart. Jim Colby tells the story with a direct, nonjudgmental delivery. Colby conveys Matt’s frustration with the confusion and language difficulties that accompany his traumatic brain injury and believably depicts how he grasps for simple words like “headache’’ by giving complex definitions. The story does not delve into political issues but focuses on the cost of war to our common humanity. Chapters are not identified, but pauses that create breaks seem longer than they should be. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2010]