Novel explores love and mercy through dual timelines and perspectives

In “Beware the Tall Grass,” Ellen Birkett Morris tells the stories of the Sloans, a modern family grappling with their young son Charlie’s troubling memories of a past life as a soldier in Vietnam and Thomas Boone, a young man sent to Vietnam in the mid-1960s.

Charlie’s mother, Eve, struggles to make sense of Charlie’s increasing references to war. While her attempts to understand threaten her marriage, Thomas wrestles with loss and first love before being thrust into combat. Through this story of love and mercy, Morris explores a world where circumstances often occur far beyond our control with grace and artful sensitivity.