Book Review: In Memoriam – Alice Winn

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley to review.

About The Book

A gripping, heart-shattering love story between two soldiers in the First World War.

It’s 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood – not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been. When Gaunt’s German mother asks him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood.

The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him, spurred on by his love of Greek heroes and romantic poetry. Before long, their classmates have followed suit. Once in the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.

My Review

It’s only March, but I’m pretty sure that I have found my book of the year. In Memoriam, Alice Winn’s debut novel, is a brutal, brave and beautiful book about World War One, class and love. A few days after reading it, it is still buzzing around my head and I’m still thinking about the protagonists Ellwood and Gaunt. I’m a huge fan of books set around WW1 and WW2, I studied literature set around this period at University and have read Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon’s war poetry, so when I saw the author Claire Fuller post about In Memoriam on her Instagram page last year, it piqued my interest.

It’s set in 1914, at the outbreak of WW1, and Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt are students at Preshute an Eton-esque school deep in the English countryside. They’re in the last year of school and destined to head off to Oxford to continue their privileged education to set them up as future leaders of the country. Best friends, verbal sparring partners, and secretly and desperately in love with one another but both afraid to express it, they circle one another, cherishing every accidental touch and glance.

When the war breaks out they’re excited, romanticising it and having lengthy conversations about the glory of battle, imagining something very different to the realities of war. They’re ensconced in a safe world at school, quoting poetry and Ancient Greek, studying and rough housing with their fellow students. Reality is quick to bite when the school newspaper’s In Memoriam pages are suddenly filled with the names of those they know, men who were only a year or two above them at Preshute.

But still, the war is a long way away, and expecting by the time the get to the conscription age of 19 that the war will be over, they continue with their studies. Until that is Gaunt’s German mother begs him to join up, hoping that this will convince others of their loyalty to England, and whilst walking in town one day a woman assumes he is a coward and hands him a white feather. Suddenly Gaunt feels like he has no choice and enlists.

What follows is an evocative and powerful read about the brutality of war. Winn portrays the realities of the trenches, the horror of battle, the terror of mustard gas and the minutiae of checking sand bags in detailed prose. I’ve read a lot of books set during the the two world wars, but this is the most unflinching I have read. It is, without doubt, barbaric. I felt like I was there, in trenches built up with the bodies of soldiers, going over the top into gunfire and sheltering in a hole left by a shell, amongst the bodies of fellow soldiers. Interspersed with this is the In Memoriam pages of the school paper, listing those who have died, those who have been injured and those thought to be lost. I found myself holding my breath, scanning the list for the names of characters who may have perished.

At its heart, is a powerful love story between Ellwood and Gaunt. Their friendship and relationship ebbs and flows, constrained as it is to secrecy, and to the war that rages on around them. Love also comes in the form of friendship from their schoolfriends, with letters between them providing news and musings on how well the war is going, and with new friendships formed with other soldiers. Wynn holds a mirror up to the class system of the time, showing an 18 year old Gaunt as a Captain by virtue of his social class whilst Hayes, an older, more experienced soldier is a lower rank. Even at war the English class system rules, with Officers eating lamb cutlets and drinking whisky in their billet whilst their men sleep in the trenches.

I can’t understate how beautiful the writing is, and how utterly immersive and tense In Memoriam is. I was genuinely moved on more than one occasion, and the world building of the era is to be applauded. Clearly well researched, it is evocative and compelling, There were some shades of Brideshead Revisited (one of my favourite books), and I adored the smattering of poetry littered throughout the book. Most of all though, I loved Gaunt and Ellwood who will stay in my heart for a very long time.