No Place Like Home-: War and storytelling in Peace--Deborah Rocheleau

     Although Richard Bausch’s Peace takes place during war, its stories of home shed light on the function of storytelling in war. One passage in particular, in which the soldier Marson talks baseball with a young Italian boy, contains a story of home. Bausch writes “Marson did not tell [the boy], […] that he had been a left-handed pitcher in the Washington Senators organization for almost two years. To do so would’ve meant having to talk about it, and he did not want to do that anymore, did not want to think about being home and playing baseball, since it dejected him so much and made him realize with such sorrow where he actually was” (Bausch 55). This passage illustrates Marson’s dislike of storytelling—at least stories about home—on the warfront. More broadly, it emphasizes how even stories of home prove little comfort in the misery of war, but in fact can make the misery even more uncomfortable.

     The novel focuses almost exclusively on the warfront, rarely dipping into characters’ pasts and never dwelling long enough for the reader to get comfortable before pulling their attention back to the war. In this passage in particular, the narration follows the train of Marson’s thoughts as they turn from the comforting subject of baseball back to the painful realization of his current, miserable surroundings. His situation was bleak before; however, in contrast to “being home and playing baseball,” it becomes so miserable he cannot even mention it by name, referring to it only as “where he actually was.” From this, he concludes it is better not to share stories of home at all, as the memory of peaceful times, rather than bringing comfort to soldiers in times of war, only servers to make the war more miserable.