This is such a beautiful and sad book. I knew part of it was based on an actual event (though I won't say which one because, spoilers), but had forgotten until it came up. I just loved it. It's roughly about Willie Maryngton and how he's too young for WWI and too old for WWII and how he deals with it. I've read other things by and about people at the time who felt similarly, and reading this account just brought that all into sharper focus for me; what would that have been like? The writing is gorgeous, and it was really amazing. I'm so glad to have read it. It's a new favorite.

Oh my goodness. What a book! Started off slowly, then by the end I was almost in tears! I don't think I have read a bad Persephone book so far, the quality is just miles above the rest.
A tragic story (and a real story I was later to find out) about a man who's only desire was to fight for his country. He missed the first and then missed the second and it broke him. He became a shadow of his former self, and when his closest friend died he became close to his sister. The last few pages really bring the story together, are fascinating and have a sort of bittersweet victory to them. I would recommend this to any Persephone lovers out there whole-heartedly.

I think it's important to know this story is a factionalized exploration of a gap in a true story. I wish I had known that from the get go. Perhaps then I would have thought nicer things of Willie, who I kept berating for inviting war into his life (war is not a game; it is not something to be wished after like a boy wishes after a set of tin soldiers. In war, those lovely tin soldiers have mothers and children and hobbies and pets and those tin soldiers die in lonesome terrifying ways.) I can't decide if the portrayal of women was extremely modern and not sexist or if it was standard. I'm a very poor example of a feminist so I have to think about these things.