Personal Effects (341 Pages)

E.M. Kokie has written his first novel that covers the relationships in a very complicated family. Matt Foster had always looked up to his older brother, T. J who was killed in the Iran war. There are many flashbacks Matt experiences as he tries to maintain memories of his brother. However, Matt's father never allowed the kids to mourn (or see him mourn) their mother's death, and within days of the father and son hearing of T.J's death, his father has removed every picture of T.J. from the walls and shelves of their house, including a bag of his personal items and the American flag from his coffin. Matt searches and searches for all of this, but Matt's dad threatens him to leave everything alone. In the meantime, Matt is involved in a very violent fight at school when one of his classmates comes to school with a Tee shirt stating to bring the soldiers home...but not in boxes, and then the listing of all local soldiers' names, including T.J. Matt gets suspended from school for a week.  Then one day, the army comes once again to the house with three foot lockers of T.J's personal effects. His father instructs them to put the boxes in T.J's old bedroom. Matt is determined to look through them before they too disappear. While his father is at work, Matt opens the 3 foot lockers and discovers a bag of letters. He closes everything up, makes sure the room appears totally undisturbed, and goes downstairs to his bedroom where he reads and rereads the letters. Then he makes a decision to secretly take a trip to see the woman that wrote so many letters to T.J. And that trip and what Matt discovers turns the entire book around. This is a very special read.