It's important to read the biographies and memoirs of more than just the shooting stars of public life, to read the stories of the ordinary (for lack of a better word) women and men who make life work. And "The Wives" is just such a story that needs to be told so that we can better understand how a wider, all-encompassing event like war affects a particular group - in this case the wives who love the men who serve. Throughout the history of war, they have made their own sacrifices, sometimes soul-crushing, in support of what their husbands do. But they get lost in the shuffle unless the ongoing war is trendy in the 24 hour news cycle, so it is all the more important to read books like this whenever one can.