WINNER OF WATERSTONES NOVEL OF THE YEAR- A gripping, heart-shattering love story between two soldiers in the First World War
It’s 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in an idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood – not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been. When Gaunt’s German mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood.
The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him. In the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication date: 09/07/2024
In Memoriam
by Alice Winn
Review by Alex A
Tender and devastating, blackly funny, completely gripping. Despite its heart-wrenching subject matter, I adored this book. Winn’s writing is warm and sure-footed, never lingering over tragedy or straying into schmaltz.
Henry Gaunt and poetic, charming Sidney Ellwood attend a prestigious British boarding school during the early years of the First World War. Despite being only 17, they both enlist and are sent to the front, where they find desperate, youthful first love, hard-won camaraderie, and relentless, senseless violence.
Life in the trenches is rendered with brutal strokes – dismembered body parts, drunkenness and shellshock abound. The tension of this utterly bleak backdrop is offset by the fierce love between Gaunt and Ellwood, and the deep affection they have for their school cohort – almost all of whom are fighting alongside them.
This novel is an ode to queer love, a gripping war story, a treatise on the necessity of poetry and language for the human spirit. I devoured it in one sitting and have since read it again, somehow enjoying it even more the second time.
Perfect for readers of The Song of Achilles or Brideshead Revisited.
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