“San Diego author Sue Diaz’s gentle voice rises above the fray and begs our attention—not with glennbeckian outrage, not with self-righteous bombast, not with armchair general postulating, but with the tender and sorrowfully sane tale she tells. [The book] is wondrous and eloquent in its intimacy, in its simplicity, in the unquestionable stories of a mother and a son entwined in a war that will be debated for generations.”—North County Times
“[An] absorbing and intimate memoir…unblinkingly determined to dig deep, to ask big questions and move toward the answers. Diaz’s emotional honesty is matched by her stellar writing: her prose is polished and, at times, achieves a quiet, soaring lyricism.”—Christian Science Monitor
“Minefields of the Heart is an honest, thoughtful, and heart-warming account of a mother’s love for her son and the many great veterans like him. Sue Diaz takes the reader through a personal account of the emotional burden so many shoulder while loved ones serve in harm’s way. Her understanding of the struggles of veterans and their families after deployment is genuine, accurate, heart wrenching, and healing. This book spoke to me as a psychologist, father, husband, and veteran.”—Bret A. Moore, author of Wheels Down: Adjusting to Life after Deployment and Kevlar for the Mind, www.militarypsych.com
“This is a book to break your heart, and to heal it. Diaz writes to and for her son, to and for the veterans she leads in writing workshops. The larger gift of this book is its generosity, allowing the reader to take the journey of a mother whose son carries the wounds of two deployments to Iraq. Minefields of the Heart teaches us what we might rather not know, but knowing, we are deeper and better human beings.”—Pat Schneider, founder, Amherst Writers & Artists, and author of Writing Alone and with Others
“Minefields of the Heart is a brilliant, beautiful, and compelling book. Sue Diaz writes as the mother of one soldier and the daughter of another. She traces her son’s transition from a boy to a combat-wounded veteran of two tours in Iraq. She lets him speak for himself through emails, letters and conversation, all the while growing in her understanding of him and of war. She weaves together her family’s history with the larger events through which they have passed. Though intended specifically ‘for all who have served and those who love them,’ the book should be read by any American who wants to understand what war really does to those who endure and to their families. As a bonus, the book is a real page-turner. You can’t put it down until you finish it.”—William P. Mahedy, author of Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets
“Harrowing, hopeful, and beautifully written. Ernie Pyle meets Anne Lamott.”—Sharon Bray, author of When Words Heal: Writing Through Cancer
