The Impact Remains
The Heroes Welcome by Louisa Young is a powerful historical novel that consumed me from the start. It is the sequel to My Dear I Wanted To Tell You. The books need to be read in numerical order or this book will not have such an emotional impact or connection.
The first book told of the horrors of World War I. This book is set in 1919 as peacetime is now faced. Lives must learn to adapt to what is a ‘new’ normal for them.
Young men returned from war. Some were physically injured. Others left their minds on the battlefields of Europe. “Peter was wounded and crippled by the war as much as any one-legged man.” For some, as soon as they closed their eyes, they were back in the mud and muck of the battlefields. Others, didn’t need to even close their eyes as the battlefields never left. There felt like nothing to live for. Even the love of family and friends couldn’t pull their minds back home. They retreated into whatever dulled the pain.
We learn that “everyone gets damaged by war. You don’t have to be in it to be damaged.” The women who greeted their returning menfolk were also damaged by war. Some tried to inject love and light into their lives. Others ran away – either physically or mentally.
There is the bravery of the couple whose soldier husband had his jaw blown off in France. He is forever physically scarred but makes the decision: “I’m not going to spend my life just surviving the war and my injury. I’m going to live my life.” For him, life is for living.
War is not glorious. “War is your friend’s blood on your face and his dead body in your arms.” And this didn’t just happen once; it happened again and again over a four-year period.
We see that once war was over and the heroes returned home, there was no heroes’ welcome. Many soldiers who were deformed found that no one would employ them. Heroes were left to beg on street corners. They gave their all, and were then on the scrap heap of life.
The Heroes Welcome is a powerful, heart-wrenching tale. As with the previous book, this tale will remain with me, long after the last page is read.
JULIA WILSON