Uncovering The Truth

The Sailor From Casablanca by Charline Malaval is a marvellous dual timeline novel – 1940 France and Casablanca and 2005 in Casablanca. The tale follows a sailor, full of life and vigour, and a young woman’s search for the truth about her grandfather after finding some wartime letters.

War is a terrible thing. It alters people beyond recognition – bodies return but minds are left behind. “The war [WWI] buried him alive” – not physically but mentally. The war to end all wars returned a generation of men who were shadows of themselves. “It wasn’t that we were brave in the trenches; we simply had no choice.”

Young men in the 1930’s failed to see another war looming as they signed up for the French navy. War is not glamorous. War changes boys into men, and men into heroes. In war there is always the choice to be made – to do your duty or to dessert. This dilemma is explored throughout the novel in an attempt to uncover the truth.