LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
The beginning of this trilogy deals with the sadness of returning home after the terrible effects of war and finding a totally different world, to adjusting to a son you don’t know, a wife greatly changed and a life difficult to pick up again. It’s an excellent portrait of the time, beautifully written, a lovely book.
Comparison: Sebastian Faulks, Andrew Greig, Simon Mawer.
Sarah Broadhurst
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The Soldier's Return Synopsis
When Sam Richardson returns in 1946 from the `Forgotten War` in Burma to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds little has changed, as far as his own limited prospects go, but in his absence his young family has altered immensely. His wife Ellen has found a sense of self worth in her war time jobs, and their six-year-old son Joe, accustomed to his mother`s undivided love, doesn`t welcome the father he barely remembers. And Sam finds the traumatic scenes of Burma have changed him too, making the confines of this working class Cumbrian town stifling. The result is a family in turmoil, which reaches breaking point when Sam resolves to emigrate to Australia. Based on Bragg`s own family, this taut, powerful novel sits firmly in the tradition of his hugely popular Cumbrian novels.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780340936306 |
| Publication date: |
28th December 2006 |
| Author: |
Melvyn Bragg |
| Publisher: |
Hodder & Stoughton General Division |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
375 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Melvyn Bragg Press Reviews
'The first Great War came alive in Faulks's Birdsong; the second Great War comes very much alive in The Soldier's Return...wholly absorbing' - John Bayley, Evening Standard
'Sympathetic, touching, infinitely believable' - D.J.Taylor, Literary Review
'Utterly credible, utterly compelling, and very enjoyable' - Allan Massie, Scotsman
Author
About Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg is a writer and broadcaster. His novels include The Hired Man, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, Without a City Wall, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Soldier's Return, winner of the WHSmith Literary Award, A Son of War and Crossing the Lines, both of which were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, A Place in England, which was longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize, and most recently Grace and Mary. He has also written several works of non-fiction, the most recent being The Book of Books about the King James Bible. He lives in London and Cumbria.
Photograph © ITV
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