"Waiting For Eden" explores grief as a type of faith

At first glance, the new novel Waiting for Eden reminded us of Johnny Got His Gun.

The title character of Eden starts out unconscious (having been so for three years after wounds sustained in a war) and eventually comes to be able to communicate with the world around him.

But Elliot Ackerman says his book isn’t a war story, which ends the Dalton Trumbo comparison.

“It’s really a book about intimacy, and it's also about grief,” he told Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin. “Which I think is a type of faith, because contained within grief is this assumption that if we make it through it, that there will be healing on the other end.”

Listen to Ackerman, who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, discuss his novel further below, or read the interview highlights on NPR’s website.