When Gaunt's mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. They're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been. In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood. Alice Winn has written a devastating love story between two young men on the Western Front' MAGGIE O'FARRELL, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HAMNET It was only because Gaunt knew he might die, that he could be so reckless as to kiss him. The longest "In Memoriam" was for Clarence Roseveare, the older brother of one of Ellwood's friends. Gaunt, who had grown up summering in Munich, did not tend to join in these soldier games.īalancing The Preshutian on his knee as he turned the page, Gaunt finished reading the last "In Memoriam." He had known seven of the nine boys killed. "Bloody Fritz! Got him in the eye! Take that home to the Kaiser!" He fashioned his hands into guns and shot at the passers-by. It soothed him to see the school functioning without him, and to know that he was above it.Įllwood also liked to sit on the roof.
He liked watching boys dipping in and out of Fletcher Hall to pilfer biscuits, prefects swanning across the grass in Court, the organ master coming out of Chapel. It was Gaunt, however, who truly loved the roof perch.
He was always scrambling around places he shouldn't. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.Īn epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.Įllwood was a prefect, so his room that year was a splendid one, with a window that opened onto a strange outcrop of roof. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow.
When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle-an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood-without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting. The violence of the front 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.
It's 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight.
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