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dunnettreader 's review for:
The Poppy Wife: A Novel of the Great War
by Caroline Scott
I love stories about World War I. It is a time that has been mostly forgotten by Americans and overshadowed by World War II. So I look for books that will illuminate this period for me. Unfortunately, "The Poppy Wife" did not succeed. The fact that the writer wasn't sure about the focus of the book is clear when I discovered that the original title when published in the UK was "The Photographer of the Lost". So is it about Edie, the wife, or Harry, photographer? This is a debut novel that is over-ambitious in style and scope of storytelling. Ms. Scott's novel has not only dual narrators, but also a timeline that jumps back and forth between 1916, 1917, and 1921 in France and England.
The attractive cover shows a young woman in a war-devastated scene. Since she is carrying a suitcase, we know that she is a visitor to this landscape. This character is Edie, the assumed widow of Francis Blythe, who was declared missing in the trenches in October, 1917. Francis, an avid photographer and fey trickster, volunteered for the war with his two brothers, Harry and Will. Will's death in battle has a drastic effect on both Francis and Harry, who were supposed to take care of their baby brother. Francis's personality changes and at one point he goes AWOL. In addition to the loss of his brother, Francis suspects that Harry is in love with Edie. During an especially terrible trench battle in Ypres, Francis is mortally wounded but Harry never sees the body.
Four years later, in the spring of 1921, Edie gets a photo of Francis in the mail. There is no note or indication of who sent it. Is Francis still alive and asking for Edie to find him? She contacts Harry, her brother-in-law,who seems to have been wandering since the end of the war taking photos, and both of them go to France to find Francis or his grave.
That's it. A pretty simple story idea that ends up being over 400 pages long. Edie and Harry do not go to France together but they visit the same places. So repeatedly we are given the descriptions of the same shelled-out cites from different points of view. The timeline jumps back and forth, giving us the war years and the aftermath from both Harry's and Edie's points of view.
We are taken back and forth across the trench lines of northern France but there is no map to help orient the reader.
The book could easily have been cut by a hundred pages by a good editor. The author feels compelled to describe everything, from little girls on a beach to the family members of a bar keeper. At first, I expected these details to be connected to the storyline, adding something of significance to move the story along. But this seldom happened. It is just an exercise in describing to excess. A few other characters are met along the way and then fall by the wayside. There is a ton of FEELING in this story, with emotions oozing on every page. There are also a lot of question marks as Edie and Harry ask themselves rhetorical questions. But if they had asked a few more questions of the people that they encountered, they may not have had to wander around France for months.
I became very impatient with the story. Nothing really happens until the last fifty pages, and even then it is shrouded in fuzzy writing.
The attractive cover shows a young woman in a war-devastated scene. Since she is carrying a suitcase, we know that she is a visitor to this landscape. This character is Edie, the assumed widow of Francis Blythe, who was declared missing in the trenches in October, 1917. Francis, an avid photographer and fey trickster, volunteered for the war with his two brothers, Harry and Will. Will's death in battle has a drastic effect on both Francis and Harry, who were supposed to take care of their baby brother. Francis's personality changes and at one point he goes AWOL. In addition to the loss of his brother, Francis suspects that Harry is in love with Edie. During an especially terrible trench battle in Ypres, Francis is mortally wounded but Harry never sees the body.
Four years later, in the spring of 1921, Edie gets a photo of Francis in the mail. There is no note or indication of who sent it. Is Francis still alive and asking for Edie to find him? She contacts Harry, her brother-in-law,who seems to have been wandering since the end of the war taking photos, and both of them go to France to find Francis or his grave.
That's it. A pretty simple story idea that ends up being over 400 pages long. Edie and Harry do not go to France together but they visit the same places. So repeatedly we are given the descriptions of the same shelled-out cites from different points of view. The timeline jumps back and forth, giving us the war years and the aftermath from both Harry's and Edie's points of view.
We are taken back and forth across the trench lines of northern France but there is no map to help orient the reader.
The book could easily have been cut by a hundred pages by a good editor. The author feels compelled to describe everything, from little girls on a beach to the family members of a bar keeper. At first, I expected these details to be connected to the storyline, adding something of significance to move the story along. But this seldom happened. It is just an exercise in describing to excess. A few other characters are met along the way and then fall by the wayside. There is a ton of FEELING in this story, with emotions oozing on every page. There are also a lot of question marks as Edie and Harry ask themselves rhetorical questions. But if they had asked a few more questions of the people that they encountered, they may not have had to wander around France for months.
I became very impatient with the story. Nothing really happens until the last fifty pages, and even then it is shrouded in fuzzy writing.