Book description
WW1 is over. As a nurse at the front, Clementine has found and lost love, but has settled for middle class marriage. Vincent had half his face blown off, and wants more than life offers now. Drawn together by their shared experiences at the Front, they have a compulsive relationship,…
Why read it?
1 author picked Blasted Things as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This was astonishinly well written. Lesley Glaister creates such resonant, breathing WWI characters and balances them in a plot that feels both inevitable and crescendoing. The historical details are sharp but lightly embedded and the characters feel as if they are psychological products of their time - in particular her internal voice for the maimed soldier Vincent, with all of his speech cliches and early 20th century cadences, draws you so closely into the reality of his world, that his failed schemes and disappointments feel almost painful to ride alongside. It's brutally dark, in the vein of Ruth Rendell's Barbara…
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