First published 1992
Christopher Tietjens sits in his London club, a wealthy officer from an established family watching his world crack apart. His wife Sylvia carries on affairs openly while he maintains his gentleman's code of silence. Meanwhile, Valentine Wallop, a young suffragette, challenges everything he believes about duty and desire. When World War I erupts, Christopher ships off to France where the trenches mirror the battlefield of his marriage. Artillery shells explode around him as he leads men into No Man's Land, yet the war at home proves equally destructive. Sylvia's calculated cruelties wound him deeper than shrapnel, while Valentine represents a future he cannot claim without abandoning his principles. As the old England dies in the mud of the Somme, Christopher must choose between the honor that defines him and the love that might save him. Ford captures one man's struggle between conflicting loyalties when an entire civilization collapses.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, war
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, France, Somme
Period: World War I
968 pages · Hardcover · Everyman's Library
Content warnings: war