The Barrons like to think of themselves as a typical American family. Never mind the fact that Todd drops bombs on Afghan targets one minute and sits down to dinner with his wife and kids the next. A drone pilot stationed in Nevada, he manages to compartmentalize the conflicting demands of combat and family life–until their son, Max, is diagnosed with autism.

His wife, Rose, deploys an army of specialists, surfing the outer limits of the web for a miracle cure. Meanwhile, Max clings to compulsive isolation and order–wearing the same tan clothes, eating the same round foods, lining up trucks or Legos or whatever else needs to be lined up–to fend off the chaos of normalcy.

Unhinged by their son’s prognosis, Rose resorts to New Age magical thinking to cope with her own sense of losing control. Todd feels curiously indifferent, watching his wife and son retreat further and further into la-la land. It’s a familiar feeling, symptomatic of his “Chair Force” job waging virtual war. The Barrons continue to drift apart until a gifted behavioral therapist intervenes, reviving the dream of discovering a common language.

The Home Front is both deeply personal and culturally relevant, a family portrait of the uncanny connection between autism, drone warfare, and virtual reality. Without a real diagnosis of the problem, the prognosis isn’t good.

For patriots like Billy Sinclair, the Iraq War started on 9/11. He is primed to kill in the backwoods of Montana, hunting with his buddy Pete under the tutelage of his grandfather, a decorated World War II veteran. When they kill their first deer, Grandpa smears its blood on their faces in honor of Pete’s great-great-grandfather, a Sioux scout who corralled the first wild horses bearing the Sinclair brand. A more sublime boyhood is unimaginable, a more tragic adolescence unthinkable.

Nobody sees it coming. Pete’s inexplicable suicide steels Sinclair’s resolve to join the Marines. The moral certainty of the war on terror fills the void left by his best friend’s death. But Sinclair’s faith falters when his platoon is forced to attack equivocal targets in Fallujah: mosques, cemeteries, and countless homes. Urban combat is tough enough without being haunted by the specters of defenseless women, let alone children.

Sinclair summons his training, holding his doubts at bay until a suicide bomber triggers flashbacks to the role he unwittingly played in Pete’s death. His own survival will ultimately depend on solving the riddle posed by these two suicides–mirror images of self-destructive compulsions at home and abroad.