In Memoriam: A novel

It seems silly that a queer romance novel would change my life, but this one has. Alice Winn has spun a tragic, heartfelt, moving novel about the trials two gay gentlemen face in World War I. This novel was written beautifully, and the author’s own expertise in classic literature and poetry shines through in such a way that it inspired me to better my own writing, and pursue educating myself on classic literature. My entire worldview and life goals shifted upon reading this novel, and I cannot thank her enough for that. My experience is very subjective, as this book came to me at the perfect time to have the most impact, and not everyone will take what I did from a queer romance such as this, but I have such love and appreciation for this book and its author, and I will be a devoted fan for many days to come.

I loved this book so much. So beautifully written and powerful in its storytelling. I found myself rationing out the chapters to prolong my time with Gaunt and Elwood as long as possible. The way in which the author captures the growth of their difficult, complicated love and profound connection is one of the best depictions of young gay romance I’ve ever read. And the harrowing brutal descriptions of life at the front in WWI, make the senseless repeated loss and slaughter vividly real and agonizing. Without preaching, the book underscores in myriad ways the nonsensical and thoughtless sacrifice of teenage boys in the name of “empire” and “England.” Not an easy read but oh so worth it. Highly recommend.

WW I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, as is no secret. Alice Winn became inspired after running across a historical treasure trove of documents: a digitized version of her boarding school’s newspaper from the early twentieth century, listing casualties from The Great War and the students who were killed or wounded fighting for Britain. The newspaper, as she showed in her book, had that old-fashioned large font, the Gazette-ish layout and direct announcements. The pedigreed students from Marlborough College put down their poetry books and highbrow hi-jinx and joined up, writing letters home that romanticized the war. Their valor carried them through, but eventually hit a wall when all their classmates started dying at the front. Winn peppered the novel with pages from the newspaper, which nearly seemed trumpeted (in an ironic and tragic way), but was actually quite raw in its frank portrayal of maimed and dead soldiers. The characterizations are A plus, palpably authentic. Her main characters, Sidney “Elly” Ellwood and Henry (Heinrich, half-German and half-British) Gaunt, meet at boarding school and fall in love, but aren’t confident enough to tell one another. Winn has a feisty and fulsome talent for meticulously depicting the people who populate the story. Even with a posh school of mostly rich white British teens, they are separate and distinct individuals. The ones who go to war experience shell-shock from such horrifying trauma on a daily basis. And, even then, she doesn’t render the same trauma behaviors. The shock and dismay and nigh unseeable trauma they witness—some as young as 16—swiftly removes the scales from their eyes. They go from boys to men in a matter of months. Winn nailed the humanity of the men and their response to the inhumanity of repeated killing. Winn’s prose is subversive, electrifying at turns. Some of the young soldiers are appointed to censor letters home, such as, “Mostly the men talk about the mud and the rats and God. We have to censor the mud and the rats, but God is allowed to remain…” In a historical note following the novel’s last pages, the author shares all the books she read to assist on the legitimacy of the book’s war content, and she stated that she folded various ones into some of her characters, events, and put words in her characters’ mouths. She writes with acuity and alacrity, fueling the authority of the narrative with her assured insight. War was the antagonist, unabating, unrepentant, unrelenting. Brave characters permeated the pages with sharp credibility; you will accept that these prep school students laid down their Tennyson for trenches (but quoted him between sprays of bullets). In fact, the title is from Tennyson’s, In Memoriam A.H.H., and Winn’s fearlessness is evident, too. She commits to her characters courage and vulnerability, so that their dialogue and thoughts are genuine, and their behaviors emanate from what they had become, and they reflect what faced them. Romantic scenes are eloquently quilled. Sex scenes are difficult enough to write between opposite genders (but at least there are centuries of examples to sift through). In the same-sex sex scenes here, Winn deftly roused the intimacy, made it do-or-die but nuanced, the consummate blend of verity and magic, devotion and candor and fire. Winn is classy, whether she is portraying love, lust, violence, or vulgarity. My only complaint could seem rather sizable, but I’ll go ahead and try to say it lightly. The plot was both on the nose and over the top. The front line, the trenches—that was all organic and likely to engage any reader. The plot wasn’t as singular as the character-driven rewards, however. The melodramatic moments weren’t necessary, and they lessened the impact of the moment. Those parts reminded me of some of the old B&W movies from the 1940’s—perhaps it was intentional, to evince an old movie, but it didn’t work for me. Winn also wrote a plot point that fit more in a Lifetime movie, not here. But she almost made it work, because her characters remained consistent; yes, her characterizations are fierce. But the performative parts of the plot—where they could almost break out in song (or sad song)—it distanced me when that happened. I think she was attempting to add gravitas, but she already had that. She could have just relied on her fully dimensional characters. I wanted to tell her that—that she didn’t need to amplify the plot like that, because her characterizations were just so phenomenal that it would have carried any dead weight in the plot. OK, so I wasted two paragraphs on why I assigned 4 stars instead of 5. I’m still thrilled I read this book. Alice Winn is immensely talented, and she can do the hard parts effectively, but taking the plot down a notch would give the right pitch and poignancy. If you dislike war novels, you will not dislike In Memoriam. This isn’t a book about strategy and war language and missions. Winn has constancy in portraying her people, the cast of provocative, young individuals that grow up both in spite of the war and because of it.

How in the world did I not know about this book last year?!?!?!?! So good!!! And again, another new author for me, Alice Winn is a debut author so really the author is new to everyone, but why quibble over semantics😉? In Memoriam is a slow build, intricately told tale of different points in time, at least the first several chapters after a point it mostly stays on track chronologically. Some might find the time jumping a bit confusing but everything is well labeled so I had no issues. Ellwood and Gaunt will suck you in, break your heart, make you smile, bring you to tears, make you angry, and even make you chuckle here and there but it will also(most importantly) make you think about things that are still so very(unfortunately) relevant today. The balance of love and horrors of war is so incredibly real, you can just feel both coming off the page and hitting you in the chest. The attention to detail can be hard to read at times but if you are reading a story about WW1 then you need to understand the scope of what reality was like for both the men in the trenches, in the hospitals, and the families back home. Now in In Memoriam the homefront scenes are not huge, are not significant page-wise but they are so significant story-wise. We also see the men back in England as well and what it was like for them, I don't want to spoil the situations and scenarios that happen at that point so I won't say more just that again, the author hits you in all the feels. The person who rec'd this story to me said it could be the next The Song of Achilles and I've seen that statement mentioned in a few other reviews as well. I gotta tell you, I have not read Achilles yet but I've heard good things about it and if it's half as good as In Memoriam then it definitely is going on my 2025 TBR list. And Alice Winn has earned a spot on my authors-to-watch list because when an author hits you in all the feels multiple times throughout the book then I know I've found a gem to be respected and recommendable.

Tough, sad, heroic, brutal and fullfilling. Worth the effort because it's beautifully written. I'm so glad I read this book.

Très bien.

Book came in great condition. I can’t wait to get into it, I’ve heard fantastic reviews about it.

The cry? laugh? scream? bash your head against a wall?-desperation in the trenches was very vivid and made me tear up more than once.

No hay gran diferencia entre pasta dura y pasta banda, es mejor la blanda, sale más barato y es lo mismo y más practicado. La historia es muy buena, me decepciona un poco que no se pueda recoger en lokers.

A very good book Good story and easy to read I enjoyed it