Small Wars

Author(s): Sadie Jones

Fiction

Hal Treherne is a young and dedicated soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. Impatient to see action, his other deep commitment is to Clara, his beautiful red, white and blue girl, who sustains him as he rises through the ranks. When Hal is transferred to the Mediterranean, Clara, now his wife, and their baby daughters join him. But Cyprus is no sunshine posting, and the island is in the heat of the Emergency: the British are defending the colony against Cypriots schoolboys and armed guerrillas alike battling for enosis, union with Greece. The skirmishes are far from glorious and operations often rough and bloody. Still, in serving his country and leading his men, Hal has a taste of triumph. Clara shares his sense of duty. She must settle down, make no fuss, smile. But action changes Hal, and Clara becomes fearful of the lethal tit-for-tat beyond the army base, and her increasingly distant husband. The atrocities Hal is drawn into take him further from Clara; a betrayal that is only part of the shocking personal crisis to come.


Product Information

Karen writes:

Sadie Jones won the Costa (previously The Orange Prize) for the best first novel for The Outcast. This second novel is even better. Hal Treherne is a young and dedicated soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. He falls in love and marries the beautiful Clara and they are posted to Cyprus along with their young daughters. It's the fifties and Britain is defending its colony and this "small war" is called The Emergency. It's brutal guerrilla warfare and as Hal becomes traumatised by his orders and the actions of his fellow soldiers his relationship with Clare becomes more distant. He struggles to keep the ugliness of the war from Clara and she pretends not to notice the estrangement. The war becomes very personal and their lives and values are turned upside down. The language is poetic simple and understated and the emotional impact on the reader is huge. To my mind she has carries the same literary weight as Pat Barker and Ian McEwan.

The prizewinning and bestselling author of The Outcast returns with an emotionally powerful portrait of a marriage in extremis and a world-view in question. Sadie Jones has produced a passionate, gut-wrenching and brilliantly researched depiction of a small wars with devastating consequences; and in doing so, raises important questions that resonate profoundly today.

General Fields

  • : 9780701184568
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.502
  • : 31 July 2009
  • : 231mm X 154mm X 30mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Sadie Jones
  • : Paperback
  • : Airport / Ireland / Export ed
  • : 823/.92
  • : 352
  • : Modern fiction