A review by escape_through_pages
These Days by Lucy Caldwell

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

In These Days, Lucy Caldwell focuses on the less well documented Belfast experience of the blitz, specifically the raids that occurred across April-May 1941. 

The story is told from the perspective of the middle class Bell family. Philip is a middle aged doctor, who has professional experiences of treating some of the casualties. Florence is his wife, who while being content with her family life, harbours secret heartbreak over a lost love from her past. The war makes her reflect on both what she has lost and what she has. They have three children, Audrey, who works in accounts and is engaged unenthusiastically to a young doctor and feeling uneasy about her future; Emma, a first aid volunteer, who is secretly newly in the throes of first love with her female supervisor, and teenage Paul, who is later evacuated to the relative safety of the countryside. 

The book is split into three parts detailing life occurring before, during and after the Dockside Raid, the Easter Raid and the Fire Raids. We see how the people of Belfast initially felt distanced from the violence of war occurring in the cities on the mainland. They are prepared with their air raid shelters and sandbags but don’t really believe they will have to use them. Until they do. 

It is a short novel but it certainly has depth, the storytelling is precise. It is cleverly written in that there is just the right amount of historical detail to satisfy readers like me who need to feel the sense of time, place and events, while avoiding being too heavy on the history so that the novel will also be well received by those in it for the love of a family story.  

Caldwell has written a moving, well researched novel that brings alive this period of time, the impact on the city and the effect on individuals. The atmosphere of devastation, the profound loss and fear, I really felt. It’s relevance to current events cannot be missed and adds to the emotional clout of the book.