This is an accomplished and beautifully written novel, quality historical fiction with memorable characters, passion, devastation, and beauty. The chapters alternate between the fishing village of Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia, and the French Front during WWI. The point of view shifts between Angus McGrath, a coastal trade skipper and amateur artist and his 13-year-old son, Simon Peter. When Angus’s beloved brother-in-law is reported missing in action in France, Angus enlists — against his father’s wishes — with the hope of finding him. Though assured of a job in a London office as a cartographer, Angus is instead shipped to the Front and finds himself leading his men through battle after battle — trench warfare with all of its horrors: shells, howitzers, mustard gas, flamethrowers, blood and gore, and futility. Despite the senseless brutality of war, there are moments of tenderness and brotherhood among Angus and his comrades. Humanity in the midst of numbing inhumanity.

On the home front in Snag Harbor, Simon Peter negotiates his own world of complex emotions and relationships. He terribly misses his father and fears that Angus will never come home. Meanwhile he helps his mother, tolerates his grandfather, befriends and tries to defend a favorite teacher, meets a girl, and helps various others in need. He learns that the world as he thought he knew it can change at any moment, and that people are not always what they seem. There are enough plot twists and surprises in both story lines to keep the reader turning pages. And there are stunning moments of gentleness and beauty — the beauties of nature and of the human spirit — that can take your breath away.

Map, compass, North Star, lifeline. A sense of direction. These guides recur throughout the book, a book that uses the metaphors of maritime navigation to speak of a deeper, interior journey, a navigation of the inner life — the delicate balance of truth and lies, the swells and troughs of human emotion, the many sides of human nature, its kindness and its cruelty. It’s a book about love, duty, honor, bigotry, manhood. But it’s also about holding steady in the face of natural disasters and human error, keeping faith in the face of the unknown, holding on to one’s integrity, sanity, and moral compass in the midst of war, loss, and disappointment.

P.S. Duffy's was one of the superb authors to speak at Books On The Night Stand's Booktopia Vermont event this past weekend. Procrastination found me reading Penny Duffy's The Cartographer of No Man's Land at the last minute. I literally finished at lunch just before her talk.

I truly did not realize I could be so interested in a book about the first world war. Penny Duffy feels this is due to America's distance from the causes and issues. The reality of war jump right off the page as her descriptions of battles, trenches and the like make you feel you are there, feel the pain, the sorrow, the devastation that these men endured. Do not let this keep you from reading The Cartographer of No Man's Land. There is more. It is a story about fathers and sons, husbands and wives, loss and love. The language is exquisite.

It quickly became evident to me that this fast reading was a huge mistake. I did get the essence of the story and a realization that this is a special book, one that merits a closer, slower, reading. I am certain I missed things in my fast read. My plan is to revisit this when a larger piece of reading time permits. The Cartographer of No Man's Land deserves no less.

I was reading this book at the same time as honouring our veterans on Remembrance Day, so the parts of the novel taking place in France seemed especially poignant. When I read this book, it seemed to me a story of a holy grail. That is for Angus and his wife Hettie Ellen: Ebbin, Hettie Ellen's brother, and Angus' dear friend. In that analogy, I felt Angus to be Galahad, but instead of Angus dying once he sets eyes upon the grail, it is Angus' innocence once he finds out the truth. Without going into spoilery details, I appreciate Duffy's choice. Upon first blush, I thought there would only be two solid choices. I always appreciate when an author can go beyond the black and white, and still weave a realistic tale.

There are a few things which tripped me up, mostly the family dynamic of MacGrath. I wasn't sure how it all came to play.

The parallels between the family waiting for Angus in Nova Scotia and the mother and son which supported him in France - Angus' choice when he wasn't really given one years ago were beautifully done.

The note Duffy has prior to the story even beginning says it all, for me. She hesitated writing about Vimy, but an "old-timer" urged her to do so. Duffy felt "it had been done", and while it's true, the advice she was given, "but too many have forgotten" (paraphrased) rings true. The more we forget history, the more doomed we are to forget it, and more families like the fictional MacGraths will be tormented with loss, and the unknown.

Intense. Evocative. Depressing. Those are the three words I can best use to sum up The Cartographer of No Man's Land. Set during WWI this is the kind of book that requires time and dedication from a reader. You can not plan to simply pick it up for a casual read because you will be overwhelmed by the sheer power of the story. Each sentence must be read and thoroughly processed or you will miss the deep meaning in the subtle layers of Duffy's novel. It requires slow deliberate reading.

It's intense and gut-wrenching. This is a story of fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and the toll that war takes on relationships of all kinds. It's an amazing story that will rip your heart to pieces and leave you wounded but you'll be a better person for having read it.

Wonderful!

This is quite the book! Its powerful in a quiet, understated sort of way. The language is so beautiful, poetic and descriptive, and the characters are fully fleshed, all-to-human people. This book is set partially in France and partially in Canada during the first World War, and is an exploration of the impact war has on those who experience it. Its also a beautiful depiction of the relationships people form with each other, relationships between family and friends, between youth and the aged. Even though there is a lot depicted from the front lines, its not a cruel or harsh book in is descriptions. The war events are very real, and horrible, but there is also a sort of grace to the writing that helps the reader to both emphasize with the characters and see the deeper meanings of the events. This is a soft, yet powerful story which will remain with me for quite some time. Highly Recommended.

I am a sucker for a war story, and I don't think I've ever read a WWI novel with a Canadian perspective before. It follows a fairly traditional format of interspersing chapters set in the trenches with ones set in Nova Scotia. A gripping story, well told; it does a good job of describing the horrors and sheer futility of trench warfare.

A well-written character-driven yarn with a good hard look at what war does to the soldiers who fight it and to the families they have left behind. The time frame is the Great War,and the setting shifts between Nova Scotia and war-time France. The story revolves around Angus McGrath, a dreamer and merchant ship's captain with the soul of an artist. Angus' beloved, spirited brother-in-law Ebbin Hant is off to war overseas, and eventually disappears without a trace. Angus' wife Hettie,very close to her brother, is inconsolable over the uncertainty of Ebbin's welfare. Angus joins the Canadian troops in France to search for Ebbin when he is assured he will be placed as a cartographer and not see action on the front. Angus' father Duncan McGrath, a life-long pacifist is outraged.

The reader visits this world through the eyes of those left behind in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, especially those of Angus and Hettie's 13-year-old son Simon Peter and his proud, angry grandfather Duncan. We are also immersed with Angus in the war and all its anguish when he is told there is no need for additional cartographers and is sent to the front as a lieutenant.

It doesn't take long to get sucked into the characters and the action. Side characters are interesting as well. The beauty of Nova Scotia offers a respite from the ugliness of battle. A fine read.

It took me a little while to warm up to the story as all of the principal characters had to be introduced as well as the problems that they were facing. The story goes back and forth between the Front and what was happening back in Nova Scotia. I was personally much more interesting with the storyline happening in the front, though both are important in painting the whole picture of the war and its impact both to people involved at the front and the loved ones left behind. Survival is an important theme in this novel and takes different forms both at the front and back at home with the internment issues. Everyone has their own way of surviving through the horrors and obstacles before them.

The Cartographer of No Man’s Land can be a bit of a disconnected experience to read but it is nonetheless a well-written, well-researched novel that brought the realities and experiences of the First World War to life as well as the constancy of life itself, how relationships keep on changing and how lives keep on going regardless of a major war raging an ocean away. I did think that the novel ended at a rather strange point, like the resolution was still midair. I recommend this novel for readers of historical fiction and novels that take place in and around the First World War.

You can read this review in its entirety over at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2013/11/11/review-the-cartographer-of-no-mans-land/

What is it with WWI? Are we gearing up for the centennial of the war starting? Did I miss something? Whatever it is, this is one of the many books I seem to have read that in some way deal with WWI (some also deal with WWII, like Letters from Skye).

The thing is, the story has to be engaging and after 100 pages, this one wasn't. Father-son problems, the horrors of war, a son without a father because he's at war? Nothing new and nothing that grabbed me. DNF.

ARC provided by publisher.