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A review by shimmer
Lambs of Men by Charles Dodd White
4.0
The cover of Charles Dodd White's Lambs Of Men announces, "The War Comes Home" and the description stresses the violence of the story, but it's actually much quieter than its cover suggests. Though it starts out as the story of Hiram Tobit, returning to his North Carolina mountain home after the First World War, the novel expands to make other characters who weren't at war just as important. There's a recurring tension between the lives of women and men over which is more strained by war, and some powerful demonstrations violence and suffering at home are as complex and brutal as combat. And there's an equal tension between fathers and offspring who inevitably fall short of each other's expectations. As the novel's focus turns away from Hiram toward his father Sloane in the second half of the novel, those questions become deeply engrossing as they emerge both from the present of the novel and from family stories woven into it.
In fact, by the end I felt like Hiram was one of the more straightforward characters and that his return from war was less significant than other elements, perhaps because the narration doesn't get as deeply into his head as it does his father's. Making returned soldiers less "damaged" than those left at home is a provocative, unusual turn, and a risky one, too, because after the narration shifts away from Hiram, his early chapters get overshadowed as Sloane becomes a more compelling, more complex, and more unexpectedly sympathetic figure. But it's also a rewarding turn, as we're challenged to rethink our sense of what's more important between the world out there and the world at home. Lambs Of Men makes us see that a place often unfairly thought far from everything important is painfully enmeshed in the world – perhaps more so – than stereotype expects, just as fathers and sons like Hiram and Sloane Tobit are more tied to each other than they want to admit.
In fact, by the end I felt like Hiram was one of the more straightforward characters and that his return from war was less significant than other elements, perhaps because the narration doesn't get as deeply into his head as it does his father's. Making returned soldiers less "damaged" than those left at home is a provocative, unusual turn, and a risky one, too, because after the narration shifts away from Hiram, his early chapters get overshadowed as Sloane becomes a more compelling, more complex, and more unexpectedly sympathetic figure. But it's also a rewarding turn, as we're challenged to rethink our sense of what's more important between the world out there and the world at home. Lambs Of Men makes us see that a place often unfairly thought far from everything important is painfully enmeshed in the world – perhaps more so – than stereotype expects, just as fathers and sons like Hiram and Sloane Tobit are more tied to each other than they want to admit.