Along the Watchtower

Squires's somber debut details the coming-of-age of Lucinda Collins, an adolescent army brat growing up in Germany in the '80s. Her family revolves around her father, Major Jack, who runs his house according to the Army's zero defect policy. To him, rules exist so that "stupid people don't wander around lost," and illness%E2%80%94including Lucinda's epilepsy%E2%80%94is weakness. Though she's never seen it, land owned by the family in Shiloh, Tex., is the only constant in a childhood filled with loneliness and fleeting friendships. The major's selfishness and a wandering eye eventually tear the family apart; Lucinda's role as messenger and mediator also causes her relationship with her mother to suffer. She soon realizes that she can only rely on herself. Much remains unrealized in Squires's often evocative novel, from Lucinda's conflict with her father to her dreams of home, and the best moments come from brief encounters with uniformed men: a Nazi ghost, a neighbor suffering PTSD, a young soldier who shares her budding love of music, and a teenage boy who appears at critical junctures, pushing Lucinda to make personal her abstract philosophies, on war, the military, and herself. (July)