WW1 – Page 6 – What Cathy Read Next…

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for When I Come Home Again by Caroline Scott. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part and to Simon & Schuster for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do also check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Joules at Northern Reader.

About the Book

How can you know who you are, when you choose to forget who you’ve been?

November 1918. On the cusp of the end of the First World War, a uniformed soldier is arrested in Durham Cathedral. It quickly becomes clear that he has no memory of who he is or how he came to be there. The soldier is given the name Adam and transferred to a rehabilitation home where his doctor, James, tries everything he can to help Adam remember who he once was. There’s just one problem. Adam doesn’t want to remember.

Unwilling to relive the trauma of war, Adam has locked his mind away, seemingly for good. But when a newspaper publishes Adam’s photograph, three women come forward, each just as certain that Adam is their relative and that he should go home with them.

But does Adam really belong with any of these women? Or is there another family waiting for him to come home?

Based on true events, When I Come Home Again is a deeply moving and powerful story of a nation’s outpouring of grief, and the search for hope in the aftermath of the First World War.

Format: Hardcover (496 pages) Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 29th October 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance

Find When I Come Home Again on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I loved Caroline Scott’s book, The Photographer of the Lost, so I was prepared for an emotional story and beautiful writing in this, her second book; I wasn’t disappointed. Once again the focus is the period after the First World War and the long-lasting effect of the conflict on the lives of so many.

Appropriately, as we approach Remembrance Sunday, the opening scenes of the book depict the journey of the coffin containing the body of the Unknown Warrior prior to its interment in Westminster Abbey. For some, the possibility the body may be that of a lost loved one brings solace, pride even. But for others, including the three women featured in the book, it does nothing but add to their fierce conviction that their missing brother, son or husband is not the body in the coffin, is not dead and will return some day. Often this in the face of advice from others to accept their loved one is gone and move on with their lives.

I loved how photographs play a part in the story, providing a link to the author’s first book. There’s the photograph published in the newspaper of the man given the name Adam Galilee that raises such fervent hope in those who have lost loved ones. And there are the photographs cherished by those families – of brothers, sons, husband who went to war and never came back – produced as evidence that Adam belongs with them. Or the photographs of parents, places or children placed in Adam’s hands in the hope of provoking a response, a flicker of recognition or a glimpse of his life before.

The scenes in which the three women who believe that Adam is their husband, son or brother come face to face with him for the first time are full of emotion and anguish. Their certainty, even though they cannot all be right, is heart-breaking to witness. But the author also conveys the emotional impact these encounters have on Adam himself, knowing the disappointment it will bring if they evoke no memories for him. Equally, the reader witnesses the effect on James Haworth, the doctor in charge of Fellside House, whose dogged determination to uncover Adam’s true identity threatens his own peace of mind.

The theme of memory runs through the book. Whether that’s the memories – good and bad – evoked by a particular place, the “muscle memory” of throwing a pot on a wheel or playing a piece by Chopin on the piano, the memory of a face but without the ability to put a name to it, or the act of remembrance in general. As long as someone is remembered, are they ever really lost? The book also poses the question whether memory can always be relied upon or, in wanting something so much to be true, it can become distorted. “Grief and hope are powerful emotions. What we see is sometimes what we want to see.”

When I Come Home Again is a beautifully crafted, emotional story that is also a timely reminder of the damaged minds and bodies that are the legacy of war.

In three words: Tender, insightful, emotional

Try something similar: The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

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About the Author

Caroline completed a PhD in History at the University of Durham. She has a particular interest in the experience of women during the First World War, in the challenges faced by the returning soldier, and in the development of tourism and pilgrimage in the former conflict zones. Caroline is originally from Lancashire, but now lives in south-west France.

Connect with Caroline
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I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for The Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott alongside my tour buddy, Amanda at My Bookish Blogspot. Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part and to Simon & Schuster for my review copy.

About the Book

‘Beautiful, unflinching, elegiac: The Photographer of the Lost is going to be on an awful lot of Best Books of the Year lists, mine included . . . it’s unforgettable’ Iona Grey, bestselling author of The Glittering Hour

1921. Families are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many survivors of the Great War have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. He is considered ‘missing in action’, but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph taken by Francis in the post, hope flares. And so she begins to search.

Harry, Francis’s brother, fought alongside him. He too longs for Francis to be alive, so they can forgive each other for the last things they ever said. Both brothers shared a love of photography and it is that which brings Harry back to the Western Front. Hired by grieving families to photograph grave sites, as he travels through battle-scarred France gathering news for British wives and mothers, Harry also searches for evidence of his brother.

And as Harry and Edie’s paths converge, they get closer to a startling truth.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (512 pages) Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 31st October 2019. Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Photographer of the Lost on Goodreads

My Review

The legacy of war, in this case the First World War, is a theme vividly and movingly explored in The Photographer of the Lost. There are the traumatic memories of conflict and survivor’s guilt of those who came back, like Harry, the lingering absence of those who didn’t, and the unfinished business of those reported missing in action, like Harry’s brother, Francis. Francis’ wife, Edie, joins many thousands of others hoping desperately for some miracle or, at the very least, finding some resolution even if only a grave at which to mourn.

Edie’s search is cleverly connected with the art of photography through Harry’s current occupation, photographing the graves of young men lost in the war as keepsakes for their grieving families and for fiancées who will now never become the wives of their sweethearts. Photographs – what they can and can’t say, the capturing of a likeness or of a moment in time – play an important part in the book. Harry and Edie both attempt to piece together clues from the photographs taken by Francis in order to uncover his story, revealing along the way a tangled web of relationships.

However, alongside the grief of relatives and the wounds – physical and mental – suffered by those who survived, there are signs of hope. For example, as Harry returns to France in 1921 he sees evidence of the rebuilding of villages destroyed in the war and of their inhabitants slowly trying to return to something like normal life. I loved the way this is also reflected in the natural world. ‘There are lines of young, flimsy-looking trees planted around the edges of the cemetery. Beyond them are other trees, bent and blasted, with metal splinters embedded in some of their trunks. They are both ugly and beautiful, these stubborn trees; they are both candid witnesses and resurgent life. New growth breaks from scarred trunks.’

Harry also witnesses those attempting to respect the memories of the fallen through the careful tending of cemeteries or the maintenance of records that might reunite families or at least bring them closure. It’s a timely reminder as we approach Remembrance Day of the horror of war, its lasting impact on nations and individuals, and the efforts of many dedicated individuals to honour the fallen (continued to this day through the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.)

The Photographer of the Lost will immerse you in the stories of its characters as they search for answers, for the strength to carry on and for forgiveness. Tissues at the ready, people.

In three words: Powerful, moving, intense

Try something similar: The Glorious Dead by Tim Atkinson (read my review here)

About the Author

Caroline completed a PhD in History at the University of Durham. She developed a particular interest in the impact of the First World War on the landscape of Belgium and France, and in the experience of women during the conflict – fascinations that she was able to pursue while she spent several years working as a researcher for a Belgian company.

Caroline is originally from Lancashire, but now lives in southwest France.

Connect with Caroline
Twitter

Tag: WW1

#BookReview When I Come Home Again by Caroline Scott @simonschusterUK