In Memoriam
A novel
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4.7 • 13 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
GMA BUZZ PICK • INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER AND AWARD WINNER • A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during World War I • “Will live in your mind long after you’ve closed the final pages.” —Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR
“In Memoriam is the story of a great tragedy, but it is also a moving portrait of young love.”—The New York Times
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle--an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood--without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Winn's superb debut chronicles a romance between two English boarding school classmates during WWI. Sidney "Elly" Ellwood is in love with Henry Gaunt, but fears his desires are unrequited; the other feels the same, but neither know it. After Henry enlists in the Army, Elly signs up, but their reunion in Flanders is muted and Henry hardly speaks to Elly. Eventually they have a sexual encounter, but Elly wonders what it means for Henry, and whether it's more than a "convenient addition to their friendship." Meanwhile, both men grapple with the realities of war, which Winn vividly renders with descriptions of the wounded (blood clings to a soldier's hair and eyelashes before "dribbling down his chin") and the "constant indignities clotted the mind," such as food covered in flies. After one of the lovers goes off to battle and doesn't return, the other is left to assume the worst. Amid the chaos, Winn stages excellent action scenes: a tense scouting mission, as well as a tunnel-digging episode involving an escape from a German POW camp. The hunger the men feel, as well as their shell shock, is palpable, but it is the men's love for each other that resonates. This is a remarkable achievement.
