The Poppy Wife

August 19, 2019
British historian Scott debuts with an unsettling close-up take on the staggering losses to a family shattered by a 1917 Western Front conflict that left “eight thousand nameless men” on the battlefield. Scott zeroes in on British woman Edie, whose husband, Francis, never came home, and the missing soldier’s younger brother Harry, who is haunted by memories of holding his wounded brother in his arms and the last words they spoke. When Edie gets a picture of Francis in the mail in 1921, she questions if he could still be alive and sets out with Harry to find him—or his grave—in France. Scott pinballs this two-part odyssey between 1917, as Harry, Francis, and their youngest brother, Will, who falls first on the battlefield, change from swaggering soldiers to haggard war veterans, and 1921, when Edie and Harry close in on the grim search for answers to Francis’s fate. “Oh, these men and their memories. It’s really not over for so many of them yet, is it?” one woman warns Edie in the disturbing resolution. Scott’s bold novel, inspired by her own family history, is instantly appealing for historical fiction fans. But the timeless story of love, loyalty, and honor will have appeal for readers of all interests.

Starred review from October 1, 2019

DEBUT Edie Blythe's husband had been declared missing and presumed killed in action in 1917. So when an envelope with a smudged postmark containing a picture of him and no explanatory letter shows up in her mailbox four years later, Edie is afraid to hope that he might be alive. What is there to do but follow the multitudes of others searching for their loved ones in the desolation of France after the war? Edie does have the help of her brother-in-law Harry, who is on the battlefields photographing graves for loved ones mourning at home, but he is scarred physically and mentally by the conflict and may not be the best guide. Can he trust his memory, or his feelings as, like so many others in the mass confusion and disruption following World War I, he searches for clues of lost loved ones among the rubble and destruction? VERDICT British historian Scott's first novel is a beautifully evocative reminder of what it means to come back from war and to face the age-old question of whether it is better to have survived or to have died. Highly recommended.--Cynthia Johnson, formerly with Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA

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