The Psychological Landscape of the Civil War - an Editorial Review of "Nostalgia"

Book Blurb: Coming soon

Book Buy Link: Follow the author at www.utterloonacy.com

Author Bio:

Susannah Willey is the award-winning author of War Sonnets (JUL 2023, Utter Loonacy Press). Awarded a five star “award of excellence” by the Historical Fiction Company, War Sonnets was also awarded third place in the General Fiction Category of its 2022 Book of the Year awards.

Susannah Willey was born in 1952 in the small town of Ira, New York where her family settled over 200 years ago. She received a degree in Instructional Computing from SUNY Empire State College in 1998 and a degree in Instructional Design from Boise State in 2002. She and her partner make their home in Central New York in the foothills of the Adirondacks. A baby-boomer and a first-generation computer geek, nature photography and hiking are among her passions and, like all good grannies, she knits.

Susannah loves to tackle the less explored emotional experiences of war. Her rich family history often serves as the foundation for her historical novels. Her first novel, War Sonnets, was inspired by poetry written by her uncle about his experiences in the Pacific War during WWII. Her upcoming novel follows a Civil War surgeon and is loosely based on the military service of two ancestors.

Editorial Review:

Title: Susannah Willey

Author: Nostalgia

Rating: 5 Stars

Susannah Willey’s "Nostalgia" is an enlightening historical novel that promises early a lasting impression. It uses the Civil War as both a setting and a psychological landscape where the battlefield is not only a place of physical violence, but a place where moral conviction, empathy, and sanity are tested to breaking point. While framed as a traditional war narrative, the book quickly reveals itself as a far deeper exploration of the mental cost of war, the limits of medicine, the human struggle to find purpose after immense suffering. It also explores the invisible wounds now understood as PTSD, a condition that was once dismissed as cowardice or a debilitating homesickness clinically called “nostalgia.”

The narrative follows Dr. Jim Banyon, a surgeon who joins the Union army armed with ambition and a growing curiosity on the lingering ailments of war veterans. As he treats soldiers while facing his own inner breakdown- feeling disillusioned, numb, and haunted by guilt while questioning the point of saving lives only to see those same men die later from infection, shock, or despair, the narrative moves between battlefield realism and psychological reflection, showing how sometimes the end of war does not mean the end of pain; sometimes, to survive is to keep bleeding invisibly.. His cousin, Napoleon, serves as his counterpoint. He is a charismatic gambler who enlists for a mix of patriotism and bounty money only to have his bravado systematically shattered by the unrelenting horror of combat. Their parallel journeys- one attempting to diagnose the mind’s fractures and the other simply struggling to endure them, provide the book with its profound, emotional gravity.

"Jim held the unsalvageable remnant of the patient’s leg and dropped it on the muddy ground. He winced at the sound it made, like the thunk of a heavy stone tossed in a pond, but much more ominous: The patient would likely die, and there would be nothing the medical staff could do regardless of their skill or attention. Jim removed the restraining straps. 'It’s over, soldier. You’ll be fine.' He didn’t believe his words, but the boy needed reassurance and hope more than he needed the truth. On days like this, time was measured in severed limbs."

The structure here is a brutal and has the feeling of a descending cascade. The pacing is deliberate and heavy, mimicking the exhausting, repetitive nature of the protagonist's work. Here, Willey uses short, declarative sentences (such as "he didn't believe his words") that hit with the finality of a hammer blow, contrasting with the more complex, despairing thought that precedes them. What is clear here is that this isn't a description of an amputation but an induction into the soul-crushing rhythm of the field hospital, that not only establishes the central conflict between futile action and grim consequence that haunt him but also exposes the quiet moral decay that sets in when compassion becomes routine and hope turns mechanical.

"Jim stepped closer. 'Napoleon?' The man’s eyes flew open as he recognized his name and Jim’s voice. 'Jim?' Napoleon signalled to another soldier to take over his end of the stretcher. With his hands free now, Napoleon grabbed Jim by the shoulders and held him at arm’s length. 'You look like hell, mister.' Jim cracked a smile. 'There’s the cousin I know and love!' he shook Napoleon’s hand. 'How are you doing?' 'I’ve been better,' Napoleon snorted out a half-laugh. 'How long has it been?' Jim asked. 'Two years?' 'Just about.' Napoleon hesitated, staring into the distance. 'Feels like a lifetime ago.'"

This excerpt is a masterpiece of subtlety and subtext. The structure here is built on a fractured reunion, that is, a moment of recognition that should be joyful but instead feels haunted, in the sense of what’s unsaid: the ghosts of the battlefield standing between them, the memory of who they were before the war stripped them down to endurance. Here, the dialogue is clipped and layered with a weary, unspoken history, as well as pauses, half-laughs, and incomplete thoughts, which make the reunion feel tense and fragile rather than warm. The clipped rhythm suggests emotional restraint — affection still existing, but buried under exhaustion, shock, and the unspoken horrors of war.

"I have heard this condition referred to as “nostalgia,” a deep yearning for home, but I am convinced it is much more than homesickness, especially since my conversations with Dr. Earle. The first thing Jim noticed when he stepped off the train in Alexandria, Virginia, was the

destruction from constant battle. This is truly a desolate country; not a family in miles, Jim wrote to his father, the abandoned houses are the very personification of loneliness. ...in my opinion, the opening of

good weather will witness the most terrible carnage this continent ever saw."

This passage operates on two levels which it beautifully intertwines. It begins with Jim’s clinical, intellectual struggle to define a condition he can perceive but not name which then seamlessly flows into the external, physical evidence of devastation that surrounds him making the abstract trauma concrete. The author’s ultimate achievement here is the creation of poignant, dramatic irony where the reader is made to understand the full scope of what Jim is witnessing- the landscape is a mirror of the soldiers' shattered interiors- while the character himself remains trapped by what feels like limited vocabulary of his time, fumbling toward a truth that remains just out of reach. It beautifully defines the book’s central idea and though the narrator’s observation that it is “much more than homesickness” immediately reframes the historical term through a modern psychological lens, positioning the novel as both reflective and critical of how war’s mental toll was once misunderstood. It is one of those passages that situate the reader in the mind of a man who is beginning to grasp that the wounds of war reach far beyond the body, achieving a fusion of historical realism, psychological insight, and haunting imagery.

"Nostalgia" will particularly appeal to those who believe the true cost of war is tallied not in territory gained, but in the shattered nerves and haunted silence of those who fight. Willey’s novel is a formidable achievement, a story whose characters, with their struggles, failures, and small, hard-won resilience, feel less like figures from a history book and more like people one has come to know, and to mourn for long after the story ends.

Award:

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