Alice Winn (1) (1992–)

[3.5] Don’t let my middling star rating dissuade you from reading “In Memoriam” if you’re a fan of war-set sagas. Unfortunately, I’ve rarely connected with this genre. It’s true that Winn’s beautifully written debut novel explores the complexities of LGBTQ themes in the World War I era. She tells the story of two young men who fall in love during a tumultuous time period. The characters are multidimensional and memorable. The storyline is intriguing. But my inexplicable disinterest in war tales prevailed. But don’t mind me: I was among a minority of moviegoers the who grumbled “Meh” after seeing “Dunkirk,” “The Hurt Locker” and even Saving Private Ryan.” The first third of the novel was the most intriguing as the author explored the dynamics of several fascinating characters during their adventures in boarding school. The genesis of this creatively structured work is also fascinating. In an interview with The Guardian, Winn recalled that she was web surfing and found that her old school had uploaded its student newspapers from early last century. Winn noted that “the novel came pouring out of me in two weeks – then I spent a year and a half editing.”… (mehr)

I had heard a lot of positive things from friends who'd read this and it didn't disappoint—a solid, often gripping, story of two British public school boys/young men each silently in love with the other who both enlist to fight during WWI. It's a very strong first novel, where you can see Winn exerting very careful control over the pacing so that it's not all carnage—but I did feel that when the story left the trenches it lost some energy, I suppose by virtue of how do you write non-action action that stands up to that. But I was still drawn in, and I thought she did a good job of keeping the love story not too sentimental, given the backdrop. Plus you've got to hand it to the author for taking on that war as subject matter in the first place—it was an ugly, out-of-scale conflict (I know, when are wars not).… (mehr)

I’m the kind of reader who stops to journal or jot down perfunctory passages. With this book, though, I didn’t stop to catch my breath. I couldn’t. I was held captive from the first page and wasn’t released until I reached the very last page. This feels like more than a story, bigger than a single story. It has all the romanticism of poetry and all the violence of Greek tragedy and all of the humanity of Shakespearean verse. It’s a brutal and beautiful story that needs to be told—this story about schoolboys who assuredly march off to war only to return as apparitions of men they used to be—because even if you survive, “It’s so much harder to be left behind” (147).

Besides being an engrossing story, it’s filled with haunting in memoriams and requiem letters and lines of poetry, making the dirge move quickly. And in between all the lamentable details are unexpected moments of joy and hope and even laughter. And it’s this hope that keeps you hanging on until the very end.

If you’re a fan of If We Were Villains or The Song of Achilles, this will surely make it to the the top of your recent reads, as it has mine—so much so that I almost have no words (just a whole bunch of emotions). In the words of Ellwood, quoting my favorite King Lear character, Cordelia: “‘I cannot heave my heart into my mouth’” (373).… (mehr)