Many of these stories are effused with the lingering emotional aftermath of the unspoken war just ended. An ineffable sense of mourning plays through the words and actions of broken or confused ex-soldiers interacting with untouched civilians. Other stories carry a long melancholic nostalgia for childhood innocence, or a just a nostalgic melancholy, with small jokes and odd details to lighten the mood, a contrast of adult versus child, a crushed innocence. 
 I very much liked the fact that the book cover is exactly the same design as the one that sat on my father's shelf when I was a boy, thus invoking in me my own melancholic nostalgia.