#fiction 2021; ISBN: 9781529156485
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5c390d_332514d4ec3641feb9cd8e1dd6f62c51~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_980,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/5c390d_332514d4ec3641feb9cd8e1dd6f62c51~mv2.jpg)
An amazing book profoundly talking about trauma, memory, guilt, and loss.
I’d once told Gilly I would never have believed that someone who’d suffered as I had could feel guilt as a result. But it was the case… Why couldn’t I just let it go, like everybody else? Nobody in Spain talks about the civil war… All too complicated, everybody guarded and silent and afraid, especially those who were on the winning side who have good reason to fear reprisal.
I loved that man. I never meant to do him harm. Oh Christ. Now I felt as though I’d killed him all over again.
I enjoy this book as it unmasks the significance of memory – although historical facts could be silenced, the truth will not be lost. Because individuals’ memories keep it, along with their strong unforgettable emotions, like guilt.
Everything smells of shit in a war. And blood… and God knows what else. I haven’t told a living soul. Don’t imagine I ever will.”
– Sensitive to what? – Everything. You’re a poet, Francis.
I am also touched by how much trauma can war bring to a person, especially ones as sensitive as a poet. As the narrator of this book, Francis McNulty’s spirit is in a fragmented state and it is hard to piece them together. Precisely as his own poem writes:
I see my life as broken glass.
With the sensation of gradually losing control of his life, his poems, and his daughter, his memories of the horrible Spanish Civil War in which his betrayal was committed are strengthened. At the end of LIFE, we can clearly observe the complexity, vulnerability, and confession of a real human being.
– Pa, you look very pale. I think I might call Dr Gent. – Gilly, I’m all right, I said… Did I have a nightmare? Yes, dear.
The book was written in a uniquely smooth way. Almost the whole story happens in the house of Francis and his daughter Gillian in Cleaver Square, in the conversations between them. Therefore, while discussing the grander topic of the impact of warfare, it also successfully portrays a father-daughter relationship full of misunderstanding as well as solicitude.
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