The Soldier's Return
'His masterpiece' - Sunday Times
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- €3.99
Publisher Description
THE FIRST NOVEL IN 'ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED LITERARY SERIES IN RECENT TIMES' (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)
'His masterpiece'
Sunday Times
'Outstandingly good'
Scotsman
'A great achievement'
Observer
When Sam Richardson returns in 1946 from the 'Forgotten War' in Burma to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds the town little changed. But the war has changed him, broadening his horizons as well as leaving him with traumatic memories. In addition, his six-year-old son now barely remembers him, and his wife has gained a sense of independence from her wartime jobs. As all three strive to adjust, the bonds of loyalty and love are stretched to breaking point in this taut, and profoundly moving novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Right from the start, when the train carrying British soldier Sam Richardson home to Wigton after his service in the Burma campaign breaks down two miles from town and he and his army comrades have to walk home, it is clear we are in the hands of a compassionate, clear-sighted writer. Bragg's work has been compared to that of Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, not without some justice. His smalltown people are closely and warmly observed, but without a shred of sentimentality, and although this story is familiar a man home from a dehumanizing war finds it hard to readjust it has seldom been imbued with such rueful humanity. For Sam, England after WWII and after the sufferings he and his men endured in the frightful jungle campaigns is stuffy and limiting; soon he starts dreaming of wider horizons. His adored wife, Ellen, however, is happily rooted in the little northern town where she grew up; their small son, Joe, who has hardly known his father, is bewitched but also terrified of him. How the family works out its fate in the shabby postwar years is Bragg's story, and he makes of it something at once endearing and heroic. So many scenes the regimental reunion, Joe's efforts to win friends among the tough town kids, a final scene at a railway station as heartrending as the movie Brief Encounter linger in the mind. The book is a small classic, deeply touching and true.
